by Mamrie Hart
Ninja Night
At this point you’ve heard of my eccentric birthdays and thought, Okay, I get it, those parties were in your twenties. You’re allowed to be an idiot. To that I say, hold on to your panties. Because my thirtieth birthday was the cream of the crop.*
When it came time to plan my three-oh, I knew I had to step it up. None of this child’s play of dressing up in sequins or dancing to “Y.M.C.A.” Hell naw. This was the first time people could legitimately give me “over the hill” cards, or a cane with a horn on it. I was over the hill and all about the thrills. So I decided I was going to have a Gun Party!
Okay, before you go all long-winded political Facebook post on me, I don’t mean real guns. These were pellet guns; they couldn’t do that much damage. I know, because I’ve been shot in the ass with one as punishment for losing a game, and it didn’t break the skin.*
This shoot-out party was going to be one for the books. The only downside was that I was super busy at the time and needed some help. I knew the exact right person for the job: Topless Tuesday cofounder Melissa. You might recognize her from stories in this book that end with me being either half-naked or on drugs. She is the type of woman who goes fountain jumping naked in L.A. and regularly attends monster truck rallies, a girl you could call on a Sunday to see what she’s up to and hear, “Not much. I ate a weed brownie and saw a show by myself at a marionette theater. What are you up to?” A word of advice, if you have a friend like this, your wild card: She is the perfect person to throw you a birthday party. Relinquish all control and just hand her a guest list.
We held the party at our friend Ryan’s warehouse. Ryan owns a prop shop, which is basically a huge warehouse where he builds crazy shit for commercials. From the outside, there isn’t much to look at: a random brick warehouse with a chain-link fence and a couple of cars parked outside. It looks like any typical canning factory or place for a murder, but on the inside it’s heaven.
To paint you a dusty picture, one time when I was leaving Ryan’s after a cookout he told me to watch out for the pack of wild Chihuahuas. I laughed and thought what a cute visual wild Chihuahuas would be. After all, I am the owner of a Mexican Hairless named Beanz.
Don’t readjust your contacts. No, that is not the slow hyena from The Lion King. That is my four-pound best friend.
Can you imagine being chased by a pack of these? Worst-case scenario, you trip and get tickled to death by their tongues. But sure enough, I pulled out of his gate and a pack of tiny, grizzled Chihuahuas, hungry for blood and Pup-Peronis, stared me down from across the road. Individually they couldn’t do much damage, but together they could destroy some ankles.
The party was set up with multiple shoot-out challenges. You had your pellet gun shooting out lightbulbs, a Chinese star being thrown at a foam bull’s-eye, a blow dart you had to get through a hole in a piece of plywood to pop a balloon ten feet behind that. It was intense! We all took turns going down the roster, and lots of folks were decent shots.
Other highlights include getting an actual crossbow as a gift, swinging from a large hanging rope while singing “Wrecking Ball,” and meeting my friend Tyler Oakley’s mom, Jackie. Jackie was visiting Tyler from Michigan, and my party happened to fall on the last night of her visit. Tyler, not wanting a total case of FOMO, asked if he could bring her along. Of course, I immediately said yes! I had seen Jackie in a lot of Tyler’s videos (he is also a YouTuber) and knew we would get along perfectly. I’m real good with moms, y’all. Here’s proof:
They say the way to a mother’s heart is teaching her how to shoot a gun while you’re dressed in a Party City ninja costume. I aim to please.
Jackie ended up going home with a Best Effort belt. Yes, being the costume designer that she is, Melissa made (from scratch) leather-and-metal wrestling belts that I was able to dole out at the end of the night as the Rocky theme song blared through the warehouse.
Most people on their thirtieth try to class it up, but I’m never going to stop having ridiculous birthdays. I say make them over-the-top. Make them strange. If people ask you, “When are you going to grow up?” think about it for a second, then reply, “Probably in a couple . . . eat shit.” We are always growing up. I’m growing up as I type this. An eighty-seven-year-old woman is still technically growing up. So be as immature as you want. Right now, you are the youngest you are ever going to be.
Hurry! Someone get me a motivational poster deal ASAP.
Frame the Cookie
Chocolate syrup
1 oz butterscotch schnapps
1 oz Irish cream
1 oz amaretto
2 oz cinnamon vodka
For the vodka: Fill a mason jar with 16 ounces of vodka (trust me, you will want 8 of these things). Toss in 5 cinnamon sticks (if you’re feeling crazy, throw in a vanilla bean). Let this sit for at least a week, shaking it once a day.
First things first: Take your chocolate syrup and go all Spirograph on the inside of a martini glass. Stick that in the freezer to harden.
Then put all your remaining ingredients in a shaker full of ice, work those biceps that you pretend to have, and strain into the frozen martini glass. But beware, this ain’t no Little Debbie bullshit. This thing will knock your pigtails into a Mohawk after four sips.
Marriage has never really been on my radar. It’s not that I dislike it or anything. If you tell me that you’re engaged, I won’t look at you with dead eyes and say, “If you’re going to tie the knot, better tie it on your noose because your life is over.” That urge to say “I do” hasn’t kicked in yet, and now that I’m thirty, I don’t think it ever will. Then again, I started enjoying mustard at twenty-seven, so anything is possible.
These days, though, it seems like weddings are more “in” than ever! When it comes to their big day, bitches be cray cray. Some girls dream about their magical day their whole lives. They have Pinterest boards filled with DIY place cards or mason jar boutonnieres. These girls can’t wait to slide into a strapless mermaid dress and walk down the aisle to Bob Carlisle’s “Butterfly Kisses.”* The thought of doing this gives me douche chills.
Part of me thinks I’ve never thought about my own wedding because I never got to be a flower girl when I was little. I have a theory that flower girls get such an insane adrenaline rush from tossing petals and the oohs from the crowd, that they’re hooked for life. Forever chasing the dragon until their own big day. Not that I didn’t want to be a flower girl; it just never happened for me, and understandably so. It’s not like I was the cutest kid on the block. When you’re picking a flower girl, you go for the most cherubic, not the most charismatic. I was always covered in dirt, and until I was four, I had the same haircut as Sandra Bullock in Gravity. Not cute. It was probably for the best that I was never in a wedding as a kid. At the end of the day, I would’ve taken over. I would’ve slipped the ushers a crisp fiver from my allowance to throw on “Motownphilly” as I did an original hip-hop routine down the aisle.
Once I aged out of flower girl, I still never joined the bridal party. I thought I would at least get to be in a wedding party once my siblings got hitched, but that ended up being a lost cause. My brother got married when he was twenty-two after he and my sister-in-law started randomly downloading each other’s music on Napster, which blossomed into a long-distance love affair for ten months and eventually a marriage with two beautiful daughters. Come on, now. A marriage that sprang from Napster? That shit is more 2001 than Shaggy’s career.
My sister has two kids with the same guy but never married him. Annie first became pregnant when she was nineteen. Normally in the South this would turn into a shotgun wedding situation, but we were fine with her not going the distance. If you aren’t fluent in redneck,* a “shotgun” wedding happens when the bride is knocked up (i.e., the father of the bride will pull out his shotgun if that sonofabitch who put a baby in his daughter doesn’t make her a bride).
/> Just because I don’t want my own wedding doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love being in one. Some girls complain that they are “always the bridesmaid, never the bride.” I, on the other hand, was “always a person who gets super wasted at the reception but is never close enough to the bride to warrant a spot in the professional photos.” Here’s the deal, guys: Even if I’m not in the wedding party, I’m always the party of the wedding. In fact, I fucking love going to weddings.
If I attend your wedding reception, there are some guarantees: I will convince your mom to take shots with me. I will flirt with your grandpa. I will get the Macarena started, and I won’t leave until I am forced.
Given my enthusiasm, I’ve never really understood people who complain so much about attending weddings. We all know these people, the ones who bitch and moan about how their schedules are just jam-packed with nuptials.
No, fu’ realz, Mamrie. Mark and I have a wedding, like, every freakin’ weekend this July. It’s, like, our part-time job.
I had one too many at some nuptials and decided to try opening all my beers on various taxidermied animals. No one else thought this game was fun.
Oh, you mean a part-time job that has an open bar, mini–crab cakes, and a bumping dance floor? BRB. Gotta fill out an application.
But Mames, you have to buy so many gifts. I can’t tell you how many toasters I’ve had to buy this year!
I’m sorry, but a sixty-dollar toaster sounds like a reasonable deal for a night of drinking. If I leave a bar with a tab lower than a cool hundo, I must’ve realized I forgot to set my DVR on a Real Housewives reunion. I wish bars had wedding registries as an acceptable form of currency. I’d be all like:
Rodney! I gotta close out, man!
(throws Cuisinart ice-cream maker on the bar)
Keep the change, ya filthy animal.
These people don’t know how good they’ve got it. Going to weddings is the shit. I straight-up train for wedding season. I give zero fucks about ever buying a wedding dress, but you’d better believe I’ve seen every episode of Say Yes to the Dress. My favorite part of this show is when Monte, the silver lion of a man, “jacks up” the bride by slapping a veil and some costume jewelry on her and voilà—everyone explodes into ugly crying.
God, if only everything in life could be solved by jacking it up. Parents don’t approve of your homosexual lifestyle? Throw a veil on it! Recently found out you’ll be spending seventeen years in prison for tax evasion? Quick! Grab one of those rhinestone ribbon belts to accentuate your waist!
I love watching these brides find their perfect dress as their bridesmaids cheer and hold up scorecards, even though I’d never had the thrill of holding up a 10 myself. But all that changed in 2011 when my high school best friend left me an excited voice mail.
“Mame-a-ho, it’s Ash-hole!” She sounded like she’d swallowed a dog whistle, her voice was so high-pitched. “Call me as soon as you get this! I’ve got some superexciting news!”
I knew immediately that my bridesmaid curse was about to be lifted. What I didn’t know was that despite having a Rolodex of sorority sisters who could throw a shower in their sleep, Ashleigh would choose me to be her maid of honor. I was instantly nervous. The spell had finally been broken, but I felt like Sleeping Beauty asking Prince Charming, “Can I get five more minutes? I’m still totally zonked.”
I knew Ashleigh was going to plan a perfect wedding and I didn’t want to screw up the MOH responsibilities. She didn’t even ask me flat out. She sent me an adorable homemade card with a poem inside asking if I would.
“Ash, are you sure? You’ve seen me smoke weed out of a PBR can multiple times. Is this the person you want as maid of honor? I am totally cool just being a bridesmaid if that will be more comfortable for—”
“Mamrie, maid of honor is in charge of the bachelorette party.”
There was no need to ask anything else. Ashleigh knew what she was doing. Unless you are standing in a bookstore right now and flipped this book open to this very page and this very sentence is the first one you’ve read in the book . . . you know that I like to party. And if you are said person in the bookstore, buy this book! Don’t just get it all greasy with your dirty fingers and put it back on the shelf. Who raised you?!
Anyway, yes. Nothing makes me happier than planning a party, and this was going to be a big-ass one. In Charleston. With sixteen of Ashleigh’s closest friends. I had met a few of them when I’d visited her in college, but that was almost ten years before and involved a lot of Goldschläger. I was basically party planning for Ashleigh and sixteen strangers.
Now, let me first preface this with the fact that these girls were wonderful and hilarious and are now my friends till the end. But walking into this crew as an outsider was intimidating. These girls were all southern ladies. Former debutantes who wore lace shorts and owned single-strand pearl necklaces. The type of girls who don’t buy Anthropologie ’cause it’s a little too “free spirit” for them. They knew how to sail, not shop at sales, and I felt like a dirty chimney sweep in their presence.
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever planned a weekend for sixteen women, but it can only be compared to herding cats. Everyone has an opinion on where to stay, what to do. Let’s stay in! Let’s go out! I’m allergic to Mexican food! I hate beer! I will eat only while surrounded by beer-drinking Mexicans! (That last one was my own request.)
There were a lot of opinions on everything from who should share rooms to what ply the toilet paper should be. And I did my best to accommodate all of them. But there was one thing I wasn’t going to budge on, and that was the first day’s activities. I wanted to be in charge of that, goddammit. I was in charge of that schedule and I knew exactly what we were going to do, the perfect activity to get everyone loosened up and comfortable around each other—a pole-dancing class! Granted, these girls had probably never even been to a strip club, let alone pole danced.
Let me take it back a month. Once I decided pole dancing would be the perfect icebreaker, I called the few places in Charleston that offered classes and settled on one that had good Yelp reviews. Now, since there were so many girls, the sweet-sounding but somewhat spacey teacher suggested we have the class in the back room performance space of a bar. That way, we would have more room and also, duh, a bar.
A month later with half a sorority in tow, I began to question my plan. I had convinced all the gals to take a few shots before we would head to the mystery activity. Once we got to the bar, however, that loosening up got retightened. The place was empty. And no one likes to enter a bar where you can still smell last night’s vomit. Have you ever been to a lush nightclub or other sleek place, accidentally forgotten to close your tab, and then had to enter the premises the next day before they opened? It’s terrifying. What looks like plush, classy velvet table service at night looks like someone jizzed all over a black-light painting in daylight. Truly disturbing.
I asked the bartender for a round of tequila shots and had everyone lift their glasses as I announced the afternoon’s activity.
“I just want to make a little cheers to Ashleigh.” The girls wooed and lifted their well tequila. “I am so honored to be your maid of honor and spend the weekend with all these girls. I still can’t believe you are getting married. Jeff is a lucky man . . . and he’s going to be even luckier after today, because we’re all about to take a pole-dancing class! Woooo!”
I slugged back my shot, only to readjust my eyes and see a bunch of not-so-excited faces. I hadn’t seen that many confused expressions since the time I auditioned for Claire Danes’s role on Homeland. I motioned to the bartender for another round.
“Pole dancing? Are you serious?” said the short one in the pink gingham wrap dress.
“I’m totally serious! Pole dancing is, like, the hottest exercise trend in New York right now. It’s not just for high school dropouts and Liv Tyler in Aerosmith videos anymo
re!* It’ll be a blast!”
Sarah S. chimed in, “Oh my god, do you remember that time Blake Foster sang the Armageddon theme to me at the Waikiki Karaoke Mixer senior year?”
With that they all started singing “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” in each of their Blake impressions, which could’ve been great but how would I know? I wasn’t part of any of these inside jokes! I took my second shot as they kept singing. And that right there is the main reason I chose pole dancing. Instant memories! Instant inside jokes that I would be a part of! Little did I know I would have instant regrets as soon as our instructor walked through the door.
The Aerosmith lyrics faded out as everyone turned to look as our pole-dancing goddess walked in with her boom box and midriff top.
“Everyone, this is Sienna.”
I could tell Sienna was the best in the biz . . . mainly because she was old enough to have invented pole dancing. I had a flash of a young Sienna doing a jitterbug around a pole in the ’20s.
She had long, flowy hair and tons of silver jewelry. I checked her wrist for a Life Alert bracelet but saw puka shells instead. But as the late Aaliyah said when she wanted to marry the world’s grossest man, R. Kelly, “Age ain’t nothing but a number,” and I agreed. I couldn’t judge Sienna because the first tip she’d ever gotten in her thong was probably a buffalo nickel. However, I could judge her because she was a total space cadet. You know how there are hippies who are really into the healing powers of rocks? Then there are the hippies who are really into smoking rocks? Sienna seemed like that kind of hippie. And homegirl had definitely indulged before this gig. She was high out of her mind and speaking in sloooow motion.
