On Man Showers (Part II)...
You may recall my post a little over a week ago regarding the Man Shower. In that post I derided the so-called baby showers that women…do, and outlined how a Man Shower is superior in about every facet of partydom known. Perhaps you did not believe me even though I stated the situation clearly. Possibly you are of the female persuasion and were offended at my brazen attack on your time-honored traditions. But I am nothing if not a seeker of Truth, and the Truth is that cigars beat “gift-bingo” games any day of the week. If you are not sure what “gift-bingo” is, let me assure you that it is terrifying.
This Friday, the Man Shower v3.0 was thrown for me and two other prospective fathers. Approximately 20 men somehow tied to one of the expectant fathers attended the event. If I told you that we held the festivities on a piece of land bigger than .2 acres in Northern Virginia, you’d call me a liar. But I’m telling you, there was a barn involved, and even though it now houses a state of the art home office, outside it still looks sufficiently rustic.
We had the customary three course meal...dinner, cigar, dessert. The first course was prepared for us by Chef Blue Badger. Now, although my feelings of the Blue Badger are acclaimed, when it comes to food, there is an established détente. Frankly, the boy can cook. There was meat. Glorious, well prepared meat. Some of it was even sufficiently red and heart clogging. And starch was also “in the house” as the homies say. There were also greens. Usually I don't condone the eating of anything that was not actually slaughtered, but the greens were laced with meat making them magically delicious…so delicious in fact, that if all vegetables were prepared that way, I’d totally become a vegetarian.
The second course was a nice helping of tobacco in its cigarish form. I'll confess a bit here, I only partook of one helping of the tobacco since I'm a documented lightweight. Let’s just say that I sometimes suffer from a disease called projectus vomitus if I consume too much. I learned that particular hard lesson in college after eating cafeteria spaghetti and smoking a Dominican brand cigar. I believe a dorm courtyard was involved…and some bushes… I know that hating life and wanting to die were there in force.
Because there was not enough smoke generated by over a dozen cigars, we held the event outside between two bonfires. It’s a good thing too because that night was about 19 degrees. On the off chance that someone in, say, Minnesota is reading this and laughs at my whining, please note that you are the freak, not me. I think I'd get an "amen" from the congregation on that one. 19 degrees in Virginia breaks the U.S. laws regarding torture…or at the very least, cruel and unusual punishment. My first inclination was to blame the Bush Administration since that is en vogue. But I decided to send my complaints higher than that to Heaven with the attn: God. My memo was entitled “Global Warming: Get On It, Dude”. Somehow we persevered though, despite losing all feeling in our toes. Finally, for dessert we retreated back to the warmth for pie and cheesecake. Lacking anything really enlightening to say about dessert, I’ll just leave it at “it was good”.
The best part of Man Showers, especially those that feature more than one father-to-be, are the mix of guys you get to participate. The majority of those were from the same church I go to, but I also had some childhood friends there and two workmates who were sufficiently terrified to hang out with me outside of work. There were also a few guys I had never met, two of which sat at the same table as me. One of these guys was a linguist who knew like 854 languages. Next to him sat a guy with an obvious non-American accent, who asked the linguist to guess his nationality. To much hilarity, our table discovered that Kiwis (New Zealanders) don’t like to be mistaken for Australians.
In all seriousness, I know that many of you who were involved in the Man Shower are reading this. Thanks for your participation. Also, thanks to the planners and cooks and everyone else who spent their time making the Man Shower what it is…a gluttonous frenzy.
This Friday, the Man Shower v3.0 was thrown for me and two other prospective fathers. Approximately 20 men somehow tied to one of the expectant fathers attended the event. If I told you that we held the festivities on a piece of land bigger than .2 acres in Northern Virginia, you’d call me a liar. But I’m telling you, there was a barn involved, and even though it now houses a state of the art home office, outside it still looks sufficiently rustic.
We had the customary three course meal...dinner, cigar, dessert. The first course was prepared for us by Chef Blue Badger. Now, although my feelings of the Blue Badger are acclaimed, when it comes to food, there is an established détente. Frankly, the boy can cook. There was meat. Glorious, well prepared meat. Some of it was even sufficiently red and heart clogging. And starch was also “in the house” as the homies say. There were also greens. Usually I don't condone the eating of anything that was not actually slaughtered, but the greens were laced with meat making them magically delicious…so delicious in fact, that if all vegetables were prepared that way, I’d totally become a vegetarian.
The second course was a nice helping of tobacco in its cigarish form. I'll confess a bit here, I only partook of one helping of the tobacco since I'm a documented lightweight. Let’s just say that I sometimes suffer from a disease called projectus vomitus if I consume too much. I learned that particular hard lesson in college after eating cafeteria spaghetti and smoking a Dominican brand cigar. I believe a dorm courtyard was involved…and some bushes… I know that hating life and wanting to die were there in force.
Because there was not enough smoke generated by over a dozen cigars, we held the event outside between two bonfires. It’s a good thing too because that night was about 19 degrees. On the off chance that someone in, say, Minnesota is reading this and laughs at my whining, please note that you are the freak, not me. I think I'd get an "amen" from the congregation on that one. 19 degrees in Virginia breaks the U.S. laws regarding torture…or at the very least, cruel and unusual punishment. My first inclination was to blame the Bush Administration since that is en vogue. But I decided to send my complaints higher than that to Heaven with the attn: God. My memo was entitled “Global Warming: Get On It, Dude”. Somehow we persevered though, despite losing all feeling in our toes. Finally, for dessert we retreated back to the warmth for pie and cheesecake. Lacking anything really enlightening to say about dessert, I’ll just leave it at “it was good”.
The best part of Man Showers, especially those that feature more than one father-to-be, are the mix of guys you get to participate. The majority of those were from the same church I go to, but I also had some childhood friends there and two workmates who were sufficiently terrified to hang out with me outside of work. There were also a few guys I had never met, two of which sat at the same table as me. One of these guys was a linguist who knew like 854 languages. Next to him sat a guy with an obvious non-American accent, who asked the linguist to guess his nationality. To much hilarity, our table discovered that Kiwis (New Zealanders) don’t like to be mistaken for Australians.
In all seriousness, I know that many of you who were involved in the Man Shower are reading this. Thanks for your participation. Also, thanks to the planners and cooks and everyone else who spent their time making the Man Shower what it is…a gluttonous frenzy.
posted by Beeley at 11:16 AM
4 Comments:
We really need a better name for the event. Man shower just has too many bad overtones. I'm for "Gathering of the Fellas" or something like that. - MBH
Agreed... I mentioned what I was up to friday (first mistake) and got several funny looks. The event's name does not do justice to the actual event itself.
I remember discussing this issue when the Man Shower concept was in its infancy. We talked for a few minutes about what we should call it and then got lazy (or got diverted more likely) and just went with the easy name. AFter three Man Showers on the books, I believe that train has left the station. Plus, I'd have to change the names of my Posts...and that is just too much work...
That funny look you were getting is called jealousy.
Probably the most alarming thing thing I noticed at the M-S III was the fact that I, along with another fine gent, were sitting next to each other. And in watching the slideshow prepared by the host, we noticed that we were both wearing the EXACT SAME CLOTHES that he and I were wearing at the LAST M-S. And we had not seen each other in between the two events. I can't decide if this is cool or creepy.
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