Living for Disco

I’m not all that comfortable with the idea of a traditional hen do. I mean, I have been known to go out and get leathered on occasion, and sometimes – yes, it’s possible – I do make a tit of myself in public places. However, I’m not the kind of girl that likes to rampage around town wearing learner plates and deely boppers, drink lambrini until I’m higher on sugar than alcohol, get strange men to sign my breasts or find myself at the end of the night puking into my own knickers. I’m far too much of a snob for that.

Because of this, it didn’t occur to me that there would be an objection when I booked a narrow boat for the day for myself and 8 friends, with the view to having a grand day out on the river. We’ll probably be a bit worse for wear from the night before anyway, so it will be a lazy day with a few beers and a pub lunch – at least, that’s my plan.

I paid the deposit weeks ago, and when I phoned up to get further details we had a brief and friendly chat. Until…

“So, what’s the occasion anyway? Birthday? Corporate team building day?”

“No, actually”, I said. “It’s my hen do.”

Silence. Then strangled nervous laughter, which broke at the end.

“Ahhh, hahahahaha, you kind of slipped through the net there,” he said brokenly. “I really wish you hadn’t told me that. Oh, oh dear. Hmm. Errr…”

“We’re very refined”, I said, remembering the last time I had a few too many glasses of fine wine while involved in a water-based activity. I fell off a punt into the River Cam. Twice. “Honestly, we are. We’re all in our thirties.” This didn’t seem to reassure him. Maybe he’d seen too many episodes of Sex and the City.

“Er, I’m sure you are,” he said, clearly not believing it for a second. I could tell that in his head he pictured his precious boat wending its way down the river, steered by a group of shrieking middle-aged harpies waving giant penises and exhorting all the fishermen en route to get their clothes off. “It’s just that single sex parties…” He trailed off.

“Oh!”, I jumped in, grasping at the only straw I had left. “There will be a man there”.

“Oh god. Oh dear god, it’s a male stripper isn’t it?”

“NO! Jesus, no. Definitely no. It’s a friend. He’s going to be the sober and responsible one.” He didn’t believe me.

But seeing as I’d already paid the deposit, he let it go, this once. His parting shot was to tell me that the £50 deposit payable on the day was dependent on the boat coming back, in one piece, by 7pm, with all equipment on board, and they were to have had no more than two complaining phone calls from horrified canal folk as we wended our way down river.

Dammit, I thought, as I put the phone down. No accosting of canal folk. Who am I going to get to sign my breasts now?

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 12:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.