Wednesday, February 20

The Birthday Party of Doom, or How I Spent My Saturday Night

The Birthday Party of Doom! That wasn't the real name for it. I mean, it was a birthday party and all, but there wasn't a whole lot of doom. Just liquor and mostly-naked women and dancing.


Bug-a-boo standing in front of the party bus, our posh mode of transportation.


My cousin Bug-a-boo, which is not her given name but in fact what her parents used and still do call her from time to time, turned 21 on Saturday. It was very handy to have been a Saturday, because Saturdays are very good days to have parties, mostly due to lack of obligations on Sunday, which is commonly known in the 20-something crowd as Recuperation From Drinking So Damn Much Day. (Yes, commonly known as. That's what everyone calls it. No lie.)

Her friend, who I will call Denim because if you know his name it's horribly clever but you probably don't know him so he's just Denim to you, also celebrated his birthday. Denim turned 24.

If you're doing the math, or if you know me, you know that my birthday is in June, and that I will be turning 25 this year. That made me one of the oldest people at the party. (I was not alone in being one of the oldest people at the party. Denim's friend Jeff Jeffty Jeff is 25. We high-fived because of it.) It is no small thing for me to be one of the oldest folks, because I am usually one of the youngest in my circle of friends. Anyhow, back to the drinking.

We started at a bar & grill, because all good things start at bar & grill establishments. (Or not. I don't really know.) There were drinks, and pork fritters, and more drinks. The bus showed up, carrying us and our accompanying alcohol to the first bar — did you know you can take beers and other liquor on party buses? I didn't know that kind of thing was even legal. Ah, the conveniences of modern life.

We went to the strip club,* where there was more drinking and milling around watching half-naked women dance. And then Bug-a-boo's friend talked to the emcee, and suddenly the birthday kids were up on stage being stripped upon by all the half-naked women in the joint. It was very funny, and I took incriminating pictures of it. (Denim, by the way, has a girlfriend who is 20. I can only imagine how she took the news that he was all danced upon.)

We went to the second bar, which was one of those college bars downtown. The bartender there made very strong drinks, and Bug-a-boo continued to drink them.


My cousins, trying to prove that they look alike, which shouldn't be surprising as they're siblings.


The above photo was taken at the second bar. Bug-a-boo and Noraa were showing their friends how much they look alike. Or they were trying to. Doing such is exceedingly difficult after you've imbibed a few beers. Bug-a-boo pulled back her hair and Noraa attempted to cover up his sideburns, which doesn't so much work when you're still holding a beer and facing a different direction.

(By the way, Noraa's nickname comes from the time he dressed up as a woman and went by Noraa. Bug-a-boo simply calls him Airhead. Which he isn't as he's actually quite well-read and knowledgeable about a multitude of random topics that piss off our grandparents, but that's a story for another day.)

We went to the third and final bar, which was a dance club. There was dancing and, as you might suspect, more drinking.

After all that, the party bus took us back to the bar & grill, where the remaining eight or so of us (down from the 21 that boarded the bus initially) milled around in the parking lot, freezing and talking. Three folks begged off, saying that they had to "work tomorrow" or "go home and drink more." (Lame excuses, really.) The rest of us went to IHOP, which was packed, and we ate food and went home and slept.

And in the morning, there were no hangovers. (Well, except for Noraa. He came out of his bedroom much later than Bug-a-boo and I, and he was groaning about a headache. She and I had nary a hurt.)

That was The Birthday Party of Doom.


* By the by, I did not take yesterday's picture of my cousins and I at the strip club. I actually suck at that sort of thing (by which I mean taking photographs of myself and others all in the same shot), while others, by some strange miracle, don't.

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