RSVP or else

There are not nearly enough words in the english language for tired. Sure, there are plenty of them, but none of them go nearly far enough - the only one that really comes close to the kind of exhaustion I and a few of my friends are feeling right now is probably 'dead'. And no, I don't mean dead tired. I mean the full body-stopped-functioning-I-can't-believe-I-can-still-type type of dead. Why the fatigue? It's called a hen's night...and it wasn't even one on an epic scale.

I did start early, I'll grant that. We sat down in a restaurant that had only just opened, to find that it was 5:30, and nobody was really hungry yet, in spite of deliberately having the tiniest lunch we could find in Strudels, and resisting the tempting array of tarts and cakes that the waitress had stragically placed our group next to (we'd been to bridesmaid dress fittings...Like we were going to indulge in junk food right away, knowing that if we gained weight in the next four weeks we'd be popping a seam???). The great thing about chinese food, though, is that you can stagger it's arrival. Or you can try to, at any rate. Sadly, we timed our departure not so well, because the gorgeous boys in suits were still sitting down when we left and we were forced to decline their polite bellows to know where we were going by the fact that our hen had no idea, and we wanted to keep it that way. Why oh why we never let her go down the stairs to the street first, I'll never know because, as it turned out, we had plenty of room to bring the boys along with us.

And now we get to the part that has left me exhausted and flat. Don't get me wrong here. Cruising around Melbourne in a party bus going to night clubs is quite fun. The "male revue" was kind of crap and corny, but it was giggleworthy to watch the shirtless barmen strutting around like they ruled the world, and kind of interesting to note that most of our group found it more amusing than appealing. And for the hen who was at least 5 months pregnant and giving the once over with a lip curled in distaste to anyone who happened to cross her path - when you're that preggers on your hen's night, and still have the nerve to stick an L-plate onto your veil, you'd better not be so disparaging to the other women who weren't so fortunate as to get up the duff and shotgun their partner down the aisle. You'd better think before you suggest that you're better than anyone in your skanky little skirt that looks more like you should have bought it for the baby you're carrying than anything a grown woman should be wearing. If you look like you should be working in the strip club next door, you have no right to criticise anyone else on their appearance...and that's the first of the nastiness out of the way. As much fun as all of that was - and incidentally, I'm wearing a veil next time I go out with all my single girls...I've never seen so many guys approaching any girl, however stunning - it was also a huge disappointment in many ways.

We sent out 38 invitations to the night. Of those, about 10 were for dinner alone, and the rest were for the nightclub tour. On the RSVP date, we'd heard from 2 people who weren't in the bridal party or related to the hen directly (and that's not counting her future in-laws). 2 people. Out of 38. And both of those 2 were no's. So we waited. We sent the hen to harass the people we didn't know. She harassed effectively and, while the dinner got down to 11 people, the bus was running a healthy 20 or so when I confirmed the booking earlier this week. We hadn't been able to extract the cash out of the people in advance like we wanted to, but we were fairly certain at least that most of those would turn up. Until we sat down to dinner and discovered that the in-laws weren't coming out after dinner afterall. 2 down. There'd been a couple of others pull out overnight as well, but we were still at a solid 15, not a bad number, overall. Then there was a phone call to me. Someone had to go into hospital - not something she could help, so I hold her absolutely blameless, especially since she and her friend, who also pulled out, were 2 of the only ones who had actually paid in advance. About 20 minutes after that, there was a text message to the hen, and another one was down. 12. The minimum number that the tour company quoted was 14, so I spent the better part of dinner getting fairly stressed about all of that. That's the problem when you organise things. You're never sure how they're going to turn out.

It should have been no surprise to me when one person simply didn't show up at all, without having contacted any of us to let us know. But somehow, it was annoying, and I'm pretty sure that the hen was more than a bit put out as well. She'd gone to a lot of trouble for the guest list, and has been to many parties that the pikers have thrown, being far too sweet to pull out without considerable anxiety and at least a phone call to apologise. So we ended up with 11 on the bus, which gradually dwindled to the core 5 by about 2 o'clock when we headed back to our hotel after a night that was, for us at least, fun, if somewhat quieter than the average hens night probably is. What can I say - we're not the most out there people in the world, and we still forked out a goodly amount of cash between the bridesmaids to make sure the night was as fun as possible for the hen. And it was. There were 5 very happy, tired girls who sat down on the couch in our plush hotel room to scoff our bedtime maccas before scooting off to our beds for some sleep, eternally grateful to the receptionist for giving us a midday checkout.

We loved that hotel. Great spot, luxurious rooms, bathrooms with everything you could need, pay TV,comfy beds, a balcony - all round greatness, we thought. Until this morning, that is. Two of the girls were in a bedroom without a window - not an issue, we figured, given the amount of time we planned on spending there, and that they were going to be asleep. We failed to notice the skylight right above their beds - the skylight without any kind of blind. They woke up at 6am to blazing sunshine and, for obvious reasons found it difficult to go back to sleep. At least one of them is currently comatose on her couch at home by now.

The rest of us were split between 2 front rooms, overlooking a not too busy CBD street. There was a bit of noise last night from a club up the road but, given some of the noise we're used to, nothing too serious. Until they decided to start resurfacing the street at 8am that morning. We hadn't gone to sleep until well after 3 last night, and we got woken up by machinery at 8am? Surely there are laws against that kind of thing! If not, there should be. There should not be noisy work like that on the streets in areas where people may be sleeping any time before midday. It's hardly fair on the people who've been carousing until the wee sma's and are no longer the 18-19 year olds who can handle those sorts of thoings without really blinking an eye. We don't get hang overs yet, and can recover fairly well, if only we have enough sleep! Even the full cooked breakfast that we had wasn't enough to wake us properly from the sleep deprived stupor that we seemed to sink into within half an hour of gathering in the living area.

The only reassurance we had was that we had thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on the night, and that we were satisfied how it had all turned out. The hen may have some lingering hurt about all the rejections of her party, but the people she's clostest to were all there for her. And the others? Well, they jsut got themselves dis-invited to the wedding!!!