Friday night my better half spent the evening (well into Saturday morning) at her sister’s house watching girly movies with their legs curled up on the sofa. What this meant to me was that I should immediately round up the fellas for a Friday-night barbecue and beer fest. So I called Stout and Trip and Boogie (yes that’s what we call him) and Minnesota Steve, and Stout called David The Great, Trip called Showboat and Arnie and Boogie called Tina. So they all came over and – wait… Who the hell invited the broad?

Have you ever had this happen on guys’ night out? Isn’t this more than just a simple party foul? When I made the initial phone call, I said the special code sentence that alerts the individual that he is to immediately report to drinking duty. I said, “Hey Name, tonight the beer flows like wine. SpacePlace at twenty hundred hours.” And that means (to you lay folk out there) that we’re drinking tonight, and to be at my place at eight o’clock. So since when are chicks invited to guys’ night out? Since when do the women drink like men? We have shit to talk about, you see. Namely women. And you can’t well do that when there are women present. Even women as neato as Tina.

So it was kind of loud, a bunch of stomping and drinking and shouting and cussing, hooting and hollering and the smell of steaks burning on the grill. An all-together pleasant night (except that everyone was a little more reserved than usual since there was a set of breasts running around the place having to pee every twelve minutes). But we did have steaks and beers, and come ten o’clock, I opened my SonicBright stereo to about a seven volume. I put on the Central Park Concert DVD (Dave Matthews Band) and kicked on the twelve-foot rear projection flatpanel high definition supa-pulse 6000 twin lazerbolt light tubes television, and we all kicked back on the couch (with beers) and blasted that shit like it was live in the living room. It was incredibly loud once the harmony expression pipes kicked in, so I had to drop the volume to about a five and a half. But it was still loud as a freight train in a library, and we all quite enjoyed ourselves. Even the girl.

We left the back windows open (which now makes me shake my head… how could I be so stupid, didn’t I learn last time when I left my upstairs windows open all night [because it was pretty outside] and cooked steaks outside and all the smoke came in the windows {because the grill is right beneath them} so all my clothes and sheets and pillows in the master bedroom smelled like Old San Fransisco for the next three weeks?) so that we could get some fresh air blowing through there, inter-mingled with the scent of steak salts and dog vomit from the backyard. So for the entire duration of the concert, which is right around three hours, the back windows are down. And music is blasting like rapid machine gun fire into the backyard, spilling over my see-through fence and into the greenbelt beyond. The ducks down by the pond were probably loving the shit out of it.

So after the concert, Minnesota Steve and I went out back for a little smoke and to check out the weather. And what do you know? There lies Tina and Boogie on the hammock in the corner. Naked. In the dark. With beers. For real. His man cannon hanging out. See, that’s why you don’t bring girls to a guys’ night out. One of the men will get tempted and, suddenly, you lose him for a few hours. I mean, I know it’s a sausage fest, but you’re there for the freedom it gives you from the sisters! And we all need that once in a while. We have to regroup and strengthen our strategies for being the stronger sex. You bring a woman into the mix and the whole mix is screwed up.

So now Boogie is like the guy who invited his little sister to the poker party. “Hay guys, can she play?!” Uh, no dude. And you just lost like thirty points in the respect bracket. Way to go, chief.