Bachelor Party Planning Conflict

There will be a bachelor party of my closest friends (think three to five). It is unstoppable. I have started to receive anonymous voicemails -- one of the first said, "It is your destiny" (clixk to hear the sepulchral James Earl Jones voice).

Being the control geek that I am, I tried to wedge myself into the planning process, if only in order to gain some intelligence into the thinking processes of my so-called friends.

My first suggestions was a tame Lord of the Rings theme. My friends spent some quality time thinking about the thoughtful humiliations they endured at my hands in prior parties and then tossed my suggestion into the Cracks of Doom.

Thus forewarned, I knew my second suggestion would have to appeal them in a different manner. Perhaps it needed some marketing. My second suggestion was a relationship theme: hunt or be hunted and games people play with their lives. Here is a sample of the marketing materials that went out with my proposal:

As you can see, the attraction was that I would arrange for a bevy of beautiful and bodacious babes, a team of talented and totally titillating tatas, a group of gorgeous and glamorous gals -- to shoot or be shot on a picturesque outdoor field. Or a converted nuclear silo. Or an old oil drilling platform. Something cool and OSHA-unfriendly like that.

In reality I was betting that sooner or later the overwhelming logistical overhead of planning this party would cause my erstwhile friends to give up hope and capitulate to my agenda.

Ah, but I vastly underestimated the power of the Internet as a collaboration tool. An effective crutch for the otherwise collaboration crippled.

Within a few days, one of these people who claim themselves to be "a close friend" contacted my administrative assistant and scammed the contact information for J, Michael, and Vladimir. Two of the three were positively perverse in their pleasure to proactively partner in planning. From a fundraising perspective, convincing two out of three billionaires over email within 24 hours to contribute to the cause was a pretty good result.

Another doom-filled voicemail warned me, "We raised a quarter million by pledging videos of you at the party."

I'm sure it's just a scare tactic...

I hope.

And pray.

Meanwhile, another friend contacted my sister to obtain a notebook computer I had thoughtlessly trusted in her care (remember that I am mostly homeless). This "friend" sent it to a so-called "recovery specialist," which is a euphemism for "computer criminal turned legit" Guantanamo Bay style. Squirming helplessly under the surgical hacking of this nefarious recidivist, the poor innocent little computer eventually gave it all up.

Fortunately there were no secrets upon it. I had never blogged here from that machine, nor retained email upon it. But I suspected they were looking for something on locales and encounters with May and Kola.

All this took about a week. My friends are too competent and have way too much free time.

But what they suspect but cannot know is the following: "Of course you realize this means war!"

One path out is to be secretly married next week. But that tacitly would be admitting defeat, tucking my tail between my legs (where there is hardly any space anyhow, I must admit modestly) and running for the safety of the altar.

No, there must be something more clever to do.

If only I could think of what it is...