As far as bach­e­lor par­ties go, Rob’s was a low-key deal. Seven of us in all. Half were from out of town, so we drove to Kingston to meet up.

The first stop was Aaron’s dad’s house. Parked in his dri­ve­way was a 1980s Lincoln Continental Town Car, before they start­ed to down­size the series. It’s a mas­sive car, with what looks like a com­plete couch in the back. As the coupe, it was­n’t even the full-size mod­el. This is the only car that pimps teal.

Most of the day was spent giv­ing each oth­er welts in speed­ball, which I learned is a testos­terone fused ver­sion of paint­ball. All speed and all accu­ra­cy. I was­n’t used to a lack of con­ven­tion­al cov­er (in favour of inflat­a­bles), or the small play­ing area, but man­aged to sur­vive with­out any body hits.

Of course, being his bach­e­lor par­ty week­end, we had to put Rob on his own team, though he did­n’t quite find out until it hap­pened. This fol­lows the tra­di­tion of oth­er frat­er­niz­ing cel­e­bra­tions, such as birth­day beats.

It was back to the hotel to get changed, and off to Rob’s favourite place to eat, which was a Chinese buf­fet. It also hap­pened to be Chinese New Year, so they had an entire roast suck­ling pig, though no one else dared to try it until I assured them it was safe.

More time was spent back at the hotel, in the hot tub, play­ing pok­er pok­er, break­ing elec­tric heaters in the exer­cise room.

Before leav­ing the next morn­ing, we went across the street to the con­ve­nient­ly placed Golden Griddle, an all-you-can-eat break­fast buf­fet for the glut­to­nous mass­es. I’ve nev­er been one to get their mon­ey’s worth out of buf­fets, but I’m sure that Rob and Aaron more than made up for my rel­a­tive­ly small por­tion. I can’t imag­ine putting such lead into my stom­ach every week­end. Unlimited bacon and sausages should be reserved for bach­e­lor par­ties, busi­ness con­tracts, and maybe the occa­sion­al bris.

Drinking was lim­it­ed; Rob was still recov­er­ing from strep throat, as can be heard in the videos. More ener­gy was spent mak­ing sure Sergio had a suc­cess­ful blind date; a tes­ta­ment to how much Rob takes care of his homies.