Enlightened bachelor party: on
sin (Article)
By D.L. STEWART
My third kid's wedding is history and it was a weekend filled with
memorable meals and parties.
If I have any regrets, it's only that each event was
another reminder of how I am starting to lose touch
with my children's generation.
The event that reminds me most is the
bachelor party.
I have been to approximately half a dozen
bachelor parties in my lifetime
and they all followed the same basic script: guys
drinking beer; girls jumping out of cakes; guys
jumping into cakes; Polaroids that would require a
great deal of explaining if my wife ever finds them.
You don't mess with tradition.
So as I head for the
bachelor party
my son's buddies are throwing, I am
prepared for a long, wild evening. My biggest
concern is whether, at my age, I will be able to
keep up with all the young guys who will be there. When I arrive, several young guys already are
whooping and hollering around a television set,
including the young guy to whom I am related by
fatherhood. "X-rated videos?" I ask him. "ESPN Sports Center," he replies. "They're showing
highlights of the Ohio State game." "Well, that's a start," I say. "I think I'll go
find myself a brewski. You want one?" "Soda," he says. "Caffeine free."
I circulate through the room. So far, the
party does not seem to be quite
as wild as the bachelor parties
I remember, although two young guys seated on
the couch are into a pretty rowdy argument about
mutual funds.
Eventually I locate the host. "What time does the entertainment start?" I ask. "Entertainment?" he says. "You know, the girls." "What girls?" "The strippers." "We're not doing that," he informs me. "Oh, I get it. You're just gonna have belly
dancers." "Not really." "Go-go girls?" "Nope." "Inflatable dolls?" "Sorry."
"You're telling me you're having a
bachelor party with absolutely no kind
of sleazy titillation?"
"There's a copy of the Ken Starr report in my
briefcase," he offers.
By 9:30 the
bachelor party
is in full swing and the guests have killed
virtually an entire six-pack of beer. By 10, the
first young guy is headed for the door.
"You're not leaving already, are you?" I ask.
"Have to go," he says, "I promised my girlfriend
I'd be home by 10:30 to watch Sleepless in Seattle
with her."
By 11:30 the affair has pretty much wound down.
It has been a very nice evening, but not quite what
I expected. Of course, I had never been to a G-rated
bachelor party before. They
could have videotaped this one and shown it on the
Disney Channel. It was not, certainly, the kind of
event my generation would have had.
But I'm sure women everywhere are pleased to hear
that many young men today are much more mature than
they were in my generation. That they have risen
above the old sexist traditions and no longer feel
the need to engage in excessive drinking and
degrading behavior at
bachelor parties.
I know it was appreciated by the bride.
Whose bachelorette
party,
from what I have heard, consisted of 12 cases of
beer, nine jugs of chardonnay and entertainment
provided by some guy named Buckaroo Bob.