The bachelor party was a full-on riot. Thursday, I ran out of work early, drove to Raleigh and hung out with one of my old college pals there. We basically had lunch, and then he dropped me off at the airport. Where I commenced to prime myself for the flight by drinking those damn expensive airport beers. I don't really like flying (which is another poast altogether), so tieing on a decent buzz ensures that the time is spend in the air either seems shorter, or is spent sleeping.

So a few hours later and a fistfull of dollars lighter, I boarded my plane. Let me tell you, I had to pee before I ever sat down. The best part was that the row in front of me was filled with three rowdy dudes, and judging by thier actions it seemed they had the same pre-flight strategy as myself. So there we are, four drunken, having-to-piss-really-bad, fools.

I'm pretty sure we burned through the allotted 3 beer maximum before we ever reached cruising altitude. We played a few rounds of poker, then I listened to some music. This is where the scary shit happens. Next thing I know, we're making our final approach to McCarran Airport. Now, I don't specifically remember sleeping on the flight; and I'm pretty sure I don't remember doing much else but spending maybe an hour playing cards and listening to music. So, I either entered into some fucked up time warp somewhere over the Ohio Valley; or I passed out, snoring and drooling, for the duration. I'm pretty sure it was option B, there. Well, I suppose it's possible I was so drunk that I blacked out an entire series of wild events that culminated in the flight attendants having to hold me down while one of them jammed a syringe of tranquilizers into my jugular, but I'm pretty sure that would've left a mark.

It's now 11pm Vegas-time, after 1am Shank-time. I'm hungry, my buzz has faded into the strong urge for a nap, and I'm in need of a shower. I check in to my hotel, and force myself to go find a bite to eat and a couple more beers at the Hooters Casino. I know, corny, but it was close and I really wanted some fried chicken.

Don't ever waste your time at the hooters resort. The wings took a dog's age to come to my seat at the bar, the chicks in the restraunt were not only bad examples of the traditional Hooter's employee, but they were old enough to be my mother. There were maybe four decent looking broads in the place, and theywere dealing at the high limit tables. The icing on the cake is that Hooters ladies still wear those God-forsaken orange nylon shorts that they've been donning since the seventies. I hate those fucking shorts, and they're the reason I've only ever been to three of their establishments, each time due to constraints which I did not have the energy to control.

I woke up at about 8:30, cursing my internal clock. I showered, grumbled some early morning grumbles, and went for a walk. I love walking in far off places alone; mixing with the crowd, seeing the sights, crusing the streets. The rest of the crew wasn't going to be around until the afternoon, so I made my way to my favorite lunch spot in Vegas, and then off to the MGM's sports book to catch some ACC basketball action. Yeah, I know some of you are thinking what kind of loser goes to vegas to watch basketball. In the state I'm from, if you don't watch ACC b-ball in March, they revoke your citizenship and banish you to somewhere shitty. Like Kansas. Besides, I absolutely love the sports lounge at the MGM. It's almost as comfy as my own couch.

Before the Carolina game started, I booked it back to the hotel. Mostly because I wanted to drink beers and watch the game, and the sports lounges charge for drinks. Well, that and watching a Carolina game in public can be a little dodgy, depending on who their playing and who else is there to watch them. I decided I didn't want to have to beat someone's ass, so I opted for seclusion. I grab some brews, a bag of ice and throw the lot of it in the bathroom sink with a little water. I smile. I'm the MacGuyver of getting drunk. You could throw me in an empty room with a ballpoint pen, a can of WD-40, and some Twizzlers and when you came back an hour or so later; not only would I have the beers on ice, but I'd also have constructed a billiards table.

My best man showed up shorty before the game was over, along with my uncle who's flight had just arrived, and a couple of the local Vegas boys. My brother's friends are some of the hardest, ne, most passionate partiers I've ever known. By the time we're all ready to go, the lot of us have sent thirty beers to the place where all good things go to die. It is approximately 6pm.

We head out to Freemont to scare up the kinds of cheap drinks and circus freaks that a place like old Freemont attracts these days. We pop in and out of several places, grabbing beers, frosted drinks in obnoxiously shaped containers, and somewhere in there someone just had to get a fried twinkie. It was bound to happen, we all knew it, because it always does. Fucking disgusting. I don't know whose fault it was, but I'm pretty sure eating a peice of that Twinkie is the main reason why I nearly painted the bathroom floor of the Golden Spike with my own vomit. I'm in bed by 8:30.

At some ungodly hour of the night, my best man and one of the local boys come crashing into the hotel room. "Oh man, you missed it dude. Now that's what I call a party!" Before getting into bed, the local runs over to the sink where the last four beers are sitting in their ice bath and decides he'll add his own ingredient to the mixture. Not only did I awake to a room that smelled fouler than a truckstop shithouse, but the remaining beers were now garbage. And Coonan, you need to be chewing your food better dude. Shits gonna tear up your insides man.

I get up early on saturday since I went to bed so early the night before. I shower and change clothes in record time, because the stink in the hotel room is making the air hard to breathe. As I'm sprinting through my morning hygene routine, the cleaning lady knocks on the door. The boys are all still zonked, so I decide to get some revenge on them for defiling my beers. I open the door as wide as it'll go. The sunshine comes charging through the front door, and I'm pretty sure it actually caused them the tiniest bit of pain, because they all groan.
"You want service!?" the cleaning lady shouts.
"I don't know," I reply gregariously. I turn to the sleeping beauties, "You guys want service?"
I get two more pitiful groans, and then the tiniest little voice replies in a falsetto, "You want me fluff pillow?" It was classic. They may have all had hangovers, but at least one of them still had his wits.

I went downstairs to check in with my uncle to see if he wanted to join me on the walk. We cruised all the way from Tropicana to Flamingo, down to the Ellis Island, and then back up towards the Desert Passage to get some grub at Todai. Before we go into the restraunt, I'm starved. I sit down and have a measly helping of rice and half a bowl of soup and my stomach gently reminds me what happened the night before. I sit there, and waste a perfect opportunity to gorge myself on some awesome all you can eat sushi because my stomach is being a grouch.

The best man came to meet us, and we decide that maybe a round of naps are in order. We get back to the hotel, and of course I can't sleep. The two of them pass out in my uncles room which conveniently does not smell of death, and I head up to our room. The boys had left without cleaning up. Sweet. I decide to undertake the task, because I'm not going to be able to sleep in there tonight if I don't. It takes an hour or so, but eventually the smell disappears and the place doesn't look so much like a crack den.

That evening we went across town to John's place to check out the new baby and have a go at the hot tub. He and his old lady whip up a nice little cookout for us, and we finish it off with a bottle of wine in the tub. We're all feeling a little better, having a good time, so we decide to, you know, just "go out and catch a few drinks" at O'Shea's since they're the cheapest on the strip. On our way into town, we rally just about everyone, and before we know it, it's three hours later and the eight or so of us are hanging out at O'Shea's watching the security gaurds cart all the passed out college kids out of the restraunt. We walk down the strip hitting a few bars and clubs, and in the process we actually lost a few men. I'm not sure what happened, but they must have jobs or something.

We get back to the room and are still hemming and hawing about whether we want to stay out or not. The JD bursts through the door, "Guys, I spoke with my buddy at Pleasures and he can get us all in for free, a table, and a free bottle. In or out?"
I look at my brother, and shrug. We were intending to rent a Ferrari the next morning, but this was sounding like a pretty sweet deal. "Fuck it man, might as well. We can rent the car in the evening." The next afternoon when I finally woke up, my brother said "I knew as soon as you agreed to go with JD and Coonan that there would be no Ferrari today." He was right.

But that just means I have one more reason to go back to Vegas.