PrixMadonna

Red5 dons a brown velour jogging suit, Nikes, a white T shirt, thick gold chain (which, as an aside, is mine and from the Vatican jewelry collection minus the honking crucifix), vintage Phillies hat positioned sideways, and the most humungous pair of sunglasses (also mine). His role tonight is that of bodyguard. He looks the part.

I am wearing layered, tied T shirts (the top one proclaims Kitten 45 in metallic red), a kilt, hoop earrings and fishnets with sneakers. I also have a red visor with my moniker Mad Dawg graffitied across the front and worn at an angle over cornrows along with some fake Louis Vuitton sunglasses borrowed from my sister who put together this amazing monstrosity of an outfit. We�re running late, so I have to affix my fake nails in the car, which becomes a theme for the evening.

We show up at �Cups�s crib at the same time as Big Poppa, who bears an eerie resemblance to John Mcenroe in his get-up. Pimp Cups is already representin� in his maroon Adidas mesh track pants and matching shirt and a Kangol hat, all of which is then accented by the concert laminate we made him with his rapper pic and logo on it proclaiming him the groom of the bachelor party and granting him all access. The look is tight, people.

Everyone gets customized pimp cups, out of which we drink Colt 45 and Miller High Life (the champagne of beer, my friends�it says so right on the box) and gold teeth prostheses, and Pimp Cups wears the Smiths, the Excaliber of sunglasses, the power of which only he can wield.*

Grip Shift and his friend, we�ll just call him Diego since Big Poppa does, show up with a Hustler magazine for the groom and wearing bike parts for jewelry, try on gold teeth and hit the malt liquor before we roll out in the 4Runner.

Our destination? Jillian�s. I was told it was like a Chuck E. Cheese for adults with billiards, tons of video games, video bowling, several bars, and the obligatory scantily clad waitresses. Oh, and another strange attraction, which is an electric chair that you can sit in and get shocked. I�d be lying if I said that wasn�t a draw for me personally. Anyway, the place has everything Pimp Cups holds dear: video games and alcohol, and a lot of both.

The drawback was that this place is about an hour and forty minutes away, and we are a vehicle full of individuals full of libations, one of whom is now riding in the very back storage compartment of the vehicle with Big Poppa�s various sports equipment. Needless to say, many pit stops were in order, particularly since Big Poppa has the seven minute rule, which is that he needs to void his bladder every seven minutes. And that�s when he�s not hitting the bottle.

So we pile into the 4runner, pimp cups full of malt liquor, and commence the journey expertly guided by our designated driver/body guard/velvet teddy bear of the evening, Mr. Red5.

Behold, Mecca. We pay for parking and find a spot and unload and strut into the building via the glass walkway above the dazzling lights of Norfolk. Red5 plays the part, ushering us into the velvet-roped entrance, holding back gawkers in awe of the Bachelor Posse.

Fully playing the Big Pimping roles we�ve self-ordained, we approach the bouncer, IDs at the ready, and we are denied entry. It seems Jillian�s has a dress code, and we are breaking all 10 of its commandments.

Never mind that �Cups has an All Access pass. Never mind that it�s his bachelor party and that we drove all the way from Richmond. Never mind that if we drive back to Richmond, we�d have no time left to do anything there.

I�d like to take this time, as the organizer of these festivities, to point out that nowhere on their website does Jillians inform you of their dress code. Indeed, there are individuals shown enjoying themselves in the glory that is Jillian�s in non-dress code enforced apparel! I also have a bone to pick with Norfolk in general because the only establishment that we could find that did not have a dress code was Hooters.

And that is where we ended up. In a Hooters in Norfolk, Virginia.

Never mind that �Cups has an All Access pass. Never mind that it�s his bachelor party and that we drove all the way from Richmond. Never mind that if we really wanted to go to a Hooters, we could have done so, IN RICHMOND!

This is where the evening really starts getting fuzzy for me.** Partly from the alcohol, and partly from the guilt I am feeling for totally screwing up this party. As Red5 puts it, �Unfortunately, at the moment we were turned away, you were hitting the regretful, self-deprecating stage of your drunkenness.�

Here is what I do remember:

We walk into the Hooters, with a little less strut this time, having been taken down a notch from yet another dress code rejection, and ask the gawking Hooters girl for a table. I�m not sure exactly what she was judging our fashion sense on, seeing as she�s dressed like a Hooters girl.

We are quite the spectacle in our entourage gear. Good old boys, frat guys and their chicks abound, and people are unabashedly goggling at us, mouths agape like Koi.

People are staring at us from every angle in the place. Fortunately for us, we�re stuck at a table in the dead center, in full view of the entire skanky establishment. At this point, I am told that I whipped out my fake nail kit and uttered that this must certainly be some level of hell, being in a Hooters putting on fake nails. I do not remember that, nor do I remember talking to some guy at the bar and asking him for directions to arcades and strip clubs.

I keep on finding out more and more about the evening ... Red5 says I offered to buy Cups a lap dance and get him into the Champagne room. I can�t believe I�d ever say that, but the boys confirmed it. Thankfully, I was incognito.

I do remember the nasty orange Hooters shorts and the amount of camel toe in the room. Also, the fact that the girls sit their polyester clad asses on every surface available, regardless of what sanitary requirement purposes said surface might have. I also remember the completely unnecessary ordering system they have in which the girls have to clip an order to a pulley and jump up and hit the order into the kitchen and thinking that they should just go ahead and install a trampoline already so that people can watch these girls� boobs bounce around.

While I�m on the Hooters bashing, who decided these women should wear gigantic slouch socks? Do people not understand that this makes one�s legs look shorter and stockier? It is ghastly.

I also remember the girls singing the hokey pokey and doing other creepy things, and the trainer coming over to our table and asking us if her girls were taking care of us and Grip Shift saying she was like their Madam. Grip Shift lived up to his name and was particularly creepy and eyeing the waitress like a hungry cartoon wolf. He worked that waitress like nobody�s business, and it�s probably a good thing that �Cups specifically asked to not go to a strip club for is bachelor party because, as he put it, �They smell distinctly of cigarette smoke and desperation.� As fate would have it, those are the key notes of Grip Shift�s signature fragrance.

At some point in the evening, the Hooter Girls made Pimp Cups stand on a stool and did something embarrassing to him and at that moment when they pulled him up, someone yelled �Yo, RUN DMC!� from the bar, and that was my favorite moment of the entire night.

At some point, we decided to drive to Virginia beach to find an arcade. I believe during the drive Grip Shift called information and got the number for Hooters in Virginia Beach and called them for the arcade location, which makes perfect sense considering our prior relationship already developed with Hooters. Alas, the arcade was closed. So we still owe �Cups some Skee Ball and various other arcade activities that will have to wait until he is a married man, but Red5 did manage to find us an Irish Pub (another favorite haunting place of the Cups, as he loves Guinness) before last call.

I do not remember anything past Murphy�s. Actually, the reason I remember the bar was named Murphy�s is that I used to go to a bar named Murphy�s back in college (Shout-out to New Paltz, NY!), but I digress. Red5 reports that on one of the stops on the way back to Richmond, the gas station where we stopped for yet another bathroom break was closed. Evidently, the boys all went in the woods back behind the place to shake the dew from the lily and found that someone had left a 10 speed back there that Grip Shift and Diego were riding around. Grip Shift wanted to filch it, but Red5 talked him out of it.

Oh Red5, you are such a saint. My hub got to bed at 5:30 AM after babysitting us all the whole evening only to be at work by 8:30 AM. He�s a rockstar, I�m telling you.

I, on the other hand, woke up with Coolio hair, missing half of the nails, and the other half glued on crooked with about 5 million fluid ounces of nail glue. The moral of this story, boys and girls, is not to give Krazy Glue to drunk people.

Now to recuperate for next weekend�s adventure: Pimp Cups and Piles are getting married! One can only imagine the cutting loose that will ensue!

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*Let�s take a moment to wax rhapsodic for the Smith sunglasses that reside in my car for glare emergencies. These highly acclaimed, nay deified, instruments of eye protection laid naively untapped in my glove box until one day, when Pimp Cups and I were going to get lunch or go book shopping or take some other seemingly innocuous trip, the rightful owner of these shades, the only individual capable of harnessing the power of The Smith Sunglasses finally lay hands on them. On that fateful day, Pimp Cups wielded the Smiths and read the enclosed directions pertaining to them, until I laughed so hard that my eyes got all squinty and I was driving about seven miles per hour on an off ramp with a line of cars inching along behind me. Like any fine piece of equipment ... From that day on, whenever he makes the mistake of letting me drive anywhere, he harasses passersby with the Smiths telling them while pointing to his eyes to, �look right here� and, with slide whistle sound effect, pushes them up the bridge of his nose declaring �Oh, they got it.�

**For more details, please see the writings of Pimp Cups, Big Poppa and, for sober recollections, Red5.

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