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Seventeen days to the wedding. Only seven of those are workdays.
I have so many things to do. A ridiculous number. And they�re not things I can turf out to anyone else. Some of them are my own fault for procrastinating (though I think I had good procrastination reasons, at least some of the time), but some of them are just those things that can�t be done until the last minute. Well, we�re pretty much at last minute here.
Ann�s brother and his friend loaded the bed into his truck Monday night without incident. I managed to avoid throwing myself at the mattress and refuse to let them leave, but it was close. The room feels so empty now. My voice echoes. It�s not my room any more.
Chris and I walked down to the Dogwood for some dinner after the Bed Patrol drove off. He�s not taking my leaving well. Although, I�m sure a big part of that is the knowledge that he doesn�t have someone lined up to take my place yet. That�s a big rent check to have to foot alone. I certainly couldn�t do it. The good news is that, surprisingly, he seems to be drinking less these days. He ordered a Coke with dinner last night. Our waitress asked him if he was feeling okay. The down side of being a regular, I suppose.
I lied. There is no down side to being a regular. There�s something really cool about walking in and having the host know our names, the waitress know our drink orders before we ask for them. There�s no place that will replace that in my new life.
But it brings other good things. I know it does. I just need to be reminded of that every once in a while.
So�
Anyway�
The story of my Bachelorette Party�
Saturday afternoon, Carla showed up at my mom�s at 2:00 and handed me five small envelopes. I�d been given no information beforehand except that I should dress comfortably. Each envelope had a time written on one corner, instructing me on when to open it. The first said, �Before opening, go to Carla�s parents� house,� so we got into her truck and drove over. Moments after we arrived, Diana pulled up and we moved to her car. Then I was told to open the envelope.
�Have Carla and Di take you to the store. Go in and purchase a copy of Playgirl. Alone.�
We drove to Barnes & Noble. Carla told me, �Be sure it has penis in it. If there�s no penis, you need to buy a different magazine!� As I got out of the car, they told me not to ask for a bag.
I walked in to find just one cashier behind the long counter, a young guy, probably in his late teens or early 20�s. I scanned the counter area�nothing behind them. I walked over to the magazine section and quickly looked there, but nothing jumped out, so I walked to the customer service desk, where I waited until the elderly gentleman walked away to ask the salesgirl if they even carried Playgirl. She walked me back to the magazine section and pulled it off the top shelf. �There you go�one copy left. It must be meant for you!�
I paid the extremely embarrassed young guy, told him I didn�t need a bag and walked out to the car, where I opened the second envelope. �Go back to Carla�s parents� house and make a naked man collage using the magazine.�
Man, Playgirl has gotten a lot more explicit since I was in high school (the last time I actually looked at one. It belonged to my friend Jodi. She got detention for having it in school when Evan Kaplan pulled it out and showed it to our math teacher.). And what an odd variety of men in the back, under the �Real Men� section. I can�t imagine taking a photo like that of the Boyfriend and sending it in!
At the house, Carla gave me two blank white pieces of paper and I got to work. Pretty soon, it was like Reservoir Dogs�dick dick dick dick dick dick dick dick dick (�how many dicks is that?� �A lot!�). I made a pretty good naked man collage, I think. While we sat at the table (Carla and Di made regular collages), we snacked on fruit, chocolate and cheese curls and discussed the logistical problems of sex in the shower and how easy it is to kill the mood for yourself when you�re a woman. �Gee, that feels good, but didn�t I leave laundry in the washing machine?�
After the collages were done, per the next card, it was off to the video store, where we rented Father of the Bride and then to what used to be Video Expo in search of Penis Straws. The trip into the store was a huge reminder of how sheltered Diana is. I�ve not seen someone blush like that in a long time!
The fourth card directed me to dinner with Carla and Di to use the Penis Straws. We went to Town Spa, where Jill, Kristy, Susie and Erica met us for pizza and root beer (hey�two of us are pregnant, one of us is trying, a fourth just had twins and two more have no tolerance at all! Root beer was as hard as it got!). We did, in fact, use our Penis Straws, a fact which amused our waitress no end.
The final card sent us back to my mom�s house, where she�d lit all sorts of candles and set out a huge spread of my favorite junk foods. We sat in the living room and played �Jennifer Jeopardy,� a game Carla had invented, with four different question categories�Wedding, General Jennifer trivia, Movies and Ex-Boyfriends. Kristy won by sweeping the movies category and then betting wisely on Final Jeopardy.
They also gave me a lovely gift�some honeymoon lingere from Frederick�s of Hollywood. I could only find a photo on the website of the shoes:
The little�gown?�matches the shoes. They�re both pink. The top is all marabou feathers over the bra. The rest is incredibly sheer tulle, with another ring of marabou around the bottom hem. I feel like a cake in it. It�s over the top, and incredibly fun! I hid it from the Boyfriend�he doesn�t get to see that until after the wedding!
The final game of the night required everyone to make a list in five minutes of every slang term they knew for the word �penis.� Mom called Judy, but they were disqualified for using James, Judy�s teenaged son, as a ringer. No woman would ever have come up with �purple headed warrior.�
Carla won with 17. Di came in second with 16. It must have been the Playgirl inspiration!
All the souvenirs from our day went into a three-ring binder that had been modified so my collage was its front and back cover.
Perhaps tomorrow, I�ll enter the Jennifer Jeopardy questions and let you play along at home. See if you can beat Kristy�s score of 140.
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