T”her”sday: It was very Bridaly.

So we left off with my swollen feet and a cake that stole my pretty. I woke up early on Thursday, like every other day of the wedding week, wanting needing coffee, my feet still hurt to walk on, and my head was about to explode. It was Bridal Shower/Bachelorette Party Day! I got ready and made myself look halfway decent but because my face decided to was time to sprout a garden due to lack of sleep and water, I was starting to look like a hormonal 15 year old. Oh well, no one’s looking at me! (Until I open my mouth and get snarky and witty…)

We wore beads until we said “Missy” and if someone caught us then they got our beads… I lost mine within 2 minutes. Missy’s mother in law is seriously competitive and hilarious! Missy totally lucked out in that department. The woman rocks. So, I lost that game right out of the gate. I mean, hello, I had slept all of 12 hours since Sunday and because my feet hurt with an inexorable pain, there was no intelligent thought at this point in the week. We ate a whole pile of food including stove pot omelettes, fresh fruit, veggies, and some seriously delicious monkey bread. (Plus, cupcakes… although… I never ate one. Frosting… buuuuh.) Missy opened presents and we played Bridal Bingo. I won. And then left my prize there when I came home… bonk. Oh well. Missy received about 12 gift cards wrapped in ginormous bags and then came the see through, lace adorned lingerie and right about then is when Missy turned the color of a stoplight. Her mom gave her a sex book which I believe to be a completely acceptable gift to receive in front of your grandmother, new mother in law and The Friendly Uncle. Yes.  It’s a Bridal Shower… it’s supposed to be embarrassing on some level.

Soon after the presents were opened, we started shooing people out.  It was party time.  We had a big night planned after all.  I was just starting to get my voice back, which was fantastic since I hadn’t been able to have a normal conversation all week.  The plan was to go to this fabulous spa and partake in a hot springs soak, some steam rooms, a nice long yoga session and then dinner and the always fabulous Bachelorette party games.  The MOH had found this seemingly great place to relax.  The website shows pictures of this lush hot springs paradise. It looked clean and other than the all nude option after dark… we were pretty excited about this place.  So we blindfolded our unsuspecting victim and drove to the Hot Springs. We spotted it at the same time and the laughing commenced.

This place was not lush.  It was not clean. It was clearly photoshopped.

It was a trailer park.

An honest to God, stand in the yard pregnant with barefeet, smoking a cigarette with a sippy cup of boxed wine amongst your car parts trailer park.  I about died.  I certainly didn’t want to take the blindfold off of my poor Missy.  MOH and I laughed from the stoplight all the way into the “resort”.  I had to lead Missy into the freezing cold, damp locker room which smelled of sulfur and had signs posted that we should probably consider leaving our valuables in the car.  So, question was, who was going to walk out in their swimsuit and put our stuff back in the car? Um.. NOT IT!

So the shock wore off and we continued on our journey to the steam room extremely leery and sure of the fact that there would be no separating from the pack.  We sat in the sauna for a while chatting it up with the locals, starting to calm down and feel a little less weirded out by this crazy ass place.  My throat started to dry out and the coughing fit sent me away from the sauna.  So we moved to the steam room. And this friends, this is where I was convinced that we probably should have just stuck with the traditional Bachelorette to-do.  We walked in, I immediately couldn’t breathe.  After about 60 seconds we lept out of the steam room and two girls got the giggles, which infected the rest of us.  I heard the words “He was NAKED!” Wait… what? Who was naked?

Apparently, the steam room was currently employing a very naked 30 something Mexican.  How I missed it, I don’t know.  But yep, I was ready to go right then.  Naked people were not in my plan. We were no longer doing the good old fashioned stripper thing. We marched right past it when we entered the nudist colony and these strippers only wore thongs on their feet.  Oh, man.   Onto the hot spring soak…

It was a slightly over luke warm hot tub that smelled like dead eggs. And the kicker? No talking. It was a place to meditate and rejuvenate.  I’d had enough of it at this point.  This trailer park public pool was off the charts bizarre and now I couldn’t talk for the next hour and a half because Ghandi said so.  Pfft… we’ll see.

I’m really not a disrespectful person, but this is a bachelorette party. Not talking is like going to the fair and not riding the Ferris Wheel.  Come the hell oooon.  So we sat there whispering to each other like we were in a packed movie theater. I rolled my eyes about twenty seven thousand times and then I started talking in my regular voice which wasn’t much more than a whisper at that point anyway.  Then we met Mr. Mayan Calendar Expert Guy.

Mr. MCEG worked at the TP Pool as an instructor of the Mayan Calendar.  So he thinks that we’re all going to die sometime in December of 2012. Naturally. I hope his energy didn’t float over to my side of the pool.  So he starts blabbing on and on about the Mayan Calendar and what today’s date meant. Then he asked if we wanted a reading. (No, no thank you.) Missy gave him her birth date.  Apparently she is a part of the Blue Eagle tribe!  Yeah.  And I’m a Pink Panther. But he went on to say that her life was in the perfect place to get married (no shit) and that this was her year of self love and acceptance. I personally don’t believe that masturbation is a great start to a honeymoon but I mean, whatever floats your boat.  He also named about forty other tribes that Missy was in due to the fact that apparently the Blue Eagle tribe is a very big deal.  Her life has a perfect triangle and basically everything she touches turns to gold and she should never worry about struggles ever.  Because the Mayan Calendar says her life is perfect.  So, the immediate question that sprang to my mind was… So whose life sucks then? What tribe is that exactly? I think it might be mine, perhaps you could confirm and/or deny?  I laughed through the whole thing.  I couldn’t help it.  This guy was off his rocker and lived on the funny farm. Or should. So far this “party” was heading in the absolute wrong direction.  The fun was being sucked out one Mayan Calendar hour at a time.  (That’s fast if the world is ending in a year and a half… just saying.)

So it was (FINALLY!!!!) time to go to yoga.  I was really looking forward to this.  I miss yoga like Jenny Craig misses butter.  I grabbed my mat that I’m sure contained the dirt from someone else’s feet and got in my comfy sitting pose.  The teacher asked us where we were from and what we were doing and proceeded to make the entire class about love and marriage.  It was actually pretty cool.  Being strong in certain positions, having faith in your body,  etc.  relating it all to the bonds of marriage.   I was inspired.  Okay fun level rising again…

Back to the house to get ready for dinner.  We were running late for our reservations but no matter!  It’s not like Thursday night in Tim Buk Tu was going to be throbbing with people.  I was feeling like major ass at this point. Tired, my feet were now in heels which was like wearing torture devices and these are my comfy shoes… My voice was failing me.  I was miserable but come on… let’s party.  So we went to this great little restaurant and drank some interesting beer and ate some fantastic food.  Opened more lingerie.  And then it was time for: The List.

Oh, The List…  A two page description of things that Missy had to do before the night was over.  And none of us were drunk. Listen, don’t give a list to a bunch of Type A successful wannabes.  Okay?  It ends badly.  You end up drive by mooning people, asking strangers for condoms out of their wallets, bartenders for condoms and ripping the chest hair out of willing and able men.  You also end up with a four guy convoy and not a lot of drinking gets done.  At one point we stopped in front of what was obviously a club for the gay and the tattooed and I’m sorry, I couldn’t take it anymore.  I needed a shot. It was the best tequila shot I’ve ever had.  Lick, shoot, suck. Yeah, I totally used training wheels.  I wasn’t drunk enough (or at all) to go free ballin’ on some well liquor, okay? Sue me.

At this point in the evening, my feet were on fire but also numb, I wasn’t buzzed and I had grown tired of The List. I was not going to ask one more unsuspecting stranger to do anymore of our satanic deeds.  I just couldn’t.  I just wanted a drink and a chair.  After I swung around a parking sign pole and documented it with my camera, we finally headed to a bar with stools.  We did another shot (yays!) and the night was coming to a close.  Missy had fun and was buzzed like a doorbell from the beer and three shots over the 6 hour period, I love a lightweight.  The List was torn into pieces (also documented with a video) and we finally made our way back to The Ranch to get some sleep.  We had an early appointment at the nail salon and it was high time to get our pampering on.  Seriously, can a hardworking bridesmaid get a foot rub?  Yes, yes she can! (But only if you’re obnoxious and beg…)