Last night's bachelor party was pretty much a debacle.

All things considered, I might have been better off if I had ended up at CityWalk sitting on deck chairs outside Margaritaville or something. Seriously. What happened, you may ask? Well, let me tell you, dear reader!

First of all, when planning a bachelor party, one must keep in mind that the more dudes that are invited to come along, the more chance there is for somebody to start shit. When you've got 25 dudes going, bad shit happening becomes an inevitability. Amazingly enough, that didn't happen for us until around midnight. Considering we all showed up to get on the bus at 5pm, that's a near-miracle. We've got word in to the Vatican about it gaining miracle status, but they're still deciding who to attribute it to, so looks like we might not get that one approved. Such is life.

Anyway, the original plan was the 25 of us were to get on a bus and head to Orlando. Then it became us probably sticking around Jacksonville. Eventually it ended up as us going down to Daytona. Which was fine; not too long a trip, and made it feel like it was worth the money we paid for the bus. The usual bachelor party stuff happened, coolers full of beer on the bus, food and beer at Hooters in St. Augustine on the way down, and the expected entertainment activities in Daytona. Things went okay until the near-fight around midnight and everyone wanting to go somewhere else after we got kicked out of that establishment.

Eventually the bachelor pretty much passes out and we decide it's time to leave the land of cheap women and expensive beer. We pile on the bus and begin the 90-minute or so trip back to Jacksonville. About 15 minutes later, the bus pulls over on the side of the highway. I figure it's because people are being rowdy assholes, but I just wasn't that lucky. Turns out the bus has broken down completely and we have to call to get a new bus to come pick us up. Keep in mind it's about 2:30am at this point. To make matters even better, what happens not three minutes after the bus stops? If your guess is a torrential downpour, then you know the story of my life already.

So, let's get a rundown of bad things going on here, shall we?

1. 25 dudes who got kicked out of a strip club because one almost started a fight
2. 25 dudes who had been at strip clubs, so they are obviously all fired up with no outlet (girlfriend, wife, booty call, prostitute, lotion, etc.)
3. 25 dudes who had not stopped drinking since 5pm
4. 25 dudes, no bathroom on the bus and it is pouring outside
   
5. No air conditioning or heating on the bus and opening windows subjects one to getting utterly soaked
6. No food, water or beer left on the bus
7. No radio to listen to
   
8. Cell phones barely work since we're in the middle of nowhere
9. At least half of the dudes on the bus smoke and there's no smoking on the bus and smoking in the downpour just isn't worth it
   
10. 25 dudes denied pretty much everything they had been consuming in excess the past nine hours getting increasingly pissed and bored and ready to kill someone

In this case, what do you figure would happen? If you guessed that it would take THREE HOURS for the replacement bus to come get us, then you're a winner! In that short span of time we saw our little pocket society disintegrate into complete chaos. The bachelor was able to get in touch with his fiance, who came to pick him up in her Explorer. He left and they stuffed 11 people into that vehicle (somehow). Everyone else realized that whoever they might be able to call at 3am who would be willing to drive south of Palm Coast to get them was already on the bus, so we were stuck toughing it out. Rather than sleeping, most people decided to stay awake and only speak at a level somewhere between screaming and yelling. It's how I imagine riding a bus with a bunch of WWF guys would be.

WWF Guy #1: "WHY IS THE BUS STOPPING!?"
WWF Guy #2: "I THINK HE'S HAVING ENGINE TROUBLE OF SOME SORT!"
WWF Guy #1: "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!"
WWF Guy #2: "YES, THERE IS DEFINITELY AN ENGINE MALFUNCTION! WE ARE STRANDED!"
WWF Guy #1: "FUCK! WHY, GOD, WHY!?"
WWF Guy #2: "CALM DOWN!"
WWF Guy #1: "I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, I'M COMPLETELY CALM RIGHT NOW!"
WWF Guy #2: "THEN WHY ARE YOU YELLING!?"
WWF Guy #1: "I'M ONLY YELLING BECAUSE YOU'RE YELLING AT ME!"
WWF Guy #2: "THIS IS MY NORMAL SPEAKING VOICE, DON'T MAKE ME KILL YOU!"
WWF Guy #1: "SORRY, MAN! I FORGET SOMETIMES!"
WWF Guy #2: "DID I MENTION WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!?"

My favorite quote from that 3-hour period? Larry, who it should be noted for future reference, is among the most obnoxious drunks ever, simply said, "Half of you die today, the other half die tomorrow. You wait and see. This is gonna be worse than that Lost show. We're all COMPLETELY FUCKED!" Things then devolved into a discussion of why the people actually capable of sleeping at that point were fair game to be killed and eaten. Like I said, anarchy took over fairly quickly in there. I decided that going to sleep wasn't in my best interest with everyone going all Lord of the Flies and whatnot. Matty and I decided that if we did get jumped, going into a fugue state was pretty much our only hope for survival against the remaining savages on that damn bus. The consensus was that the driver would be the first to die, no matter what. It made perfect sense to us at the time. If he died, well, it was every man for himself at that point. Thankfully we were able to wait out the remaining time, losing our buzzes and our minds by the time the surly replacement driver arrived.

After leaving our bus that reeked of beer, cigarettes and strippers, we boarded our gigantic, much newer, much nicer bus and headed home. This was around 6am. Larry was almost the first one killed after he began a routine as a preacher, preaching the joys of alcohol. Let's just say I wasn't ready to receive his message and almost strangled him with the lei I picked up much, much earlier in the evening; during what we like to call, "the happy times." Once we get back to the parking lot I go straight to my car, not speaking to anyone. I pull into my driveway 20 minutes later, just as the sun is rising. I pick up my paper and go to sleep until noon.

The moral of the story? Don't go to a bachelor party with any more than 10 people or you might be forced to resort to cannibalism at some point. And for god's sake, don't ever be the driver for that trip. Just a word to the wise.