Boys Weekend Out!

A couple times a year, several of my friends and I head north a couple of hours to my friend Spen's cabin. The guest list is always strictly male. I'm not sure that we've ever specifically said it was an all-male thing, but judging by the typical activities it is probably a moot point, as I'm not sure any female would want to subject herself to the virtual testosterone bath that ensues. Mostly we enjoy just hanging out with very little to do, and patronizing local dive bars, of which northern Wisconsin has approximately 10 per capita. This particular weekend happened to also be the first weekend of hunting season in Wisconsin, so the potential for unintentional comedy was as high as Kate Moss on a New York weeknight.

We arrived at our favorite bar (and by that I mean the closest to the cabin) after grocery shopping for various fried foods requiring only oven preparation (no running water in winter), the champagne of beers, and a full 18-wheeler full of natural spring water and advil. "Shooter's Bar" was indeed busier than usual, and we were the only ones not wearing camo and orange. Now, Shooters has been the site of several fabulous Cabin Weekend moments, including:

*My friend Chris asking "One-eyed Tony" if he could look under his eye-patch
*The infamous Minnesota Mexican shot (tequila with a live minnow in it...well, it's alive when it goes in -- yes, Shooters also sells live bait..it's Wisconsin stupid)
*The Great Stealing of the Inflatable Miller High Life Blow-Up Deer of '03
*The Great Stealing of the Life Size Brett Favre Cardboard Cut-Out of '04
*On our first trip to Shooters, thinking that a $2.75 Jack & Coke was a pretty good deal before realizing that tap beer is normally priced $1 (you can't beat northern Wisconsin prices)

On this night, the drinking was a little slower than usual, and the group smaller than average, so there were no truly glorious frat-boy moments for us, but we did come up with an incredible way to waste time with two dice and a wad of cash a piece. We spent more time coming up with a set of rules that everyone could agree on then playing, and frankly, for men this is the most enjoyable part anyway; with the possible exception of trying to come up with the funniest drunken quip, hopefully at the expense of someone else in the group. And dice are one thing, so you can only imagine what the Rules Committee Meeting for wiffleball looked like the next day, when actual athletic competition is involved. If I ran the country, coming up with Wiffle Ball rules would be required training for all United States Ambassadors. I'm not sure that there is a female equivalent of this pheonomenon. I don't ever recall my younger sisters having heated arguments about the proper tree to use as foul pole, the merits of opposite field home-run area on left-handed hitting, or equality of semi-soft toss pitching. It was more about which My Little Pony to play with, or the proper positioning of Single Mommy Barbi at a tea party with Malibu Ken. Right, ladies?

For guys, competition in any form is comforting and relaxing, and all we're really looking to get out of these weekends, and god-damned it...we better win something. Fortunately for us, there was too much snow on the ground to allow base-running during Wiffleball, or I would more likely be writing this paragraph from the Bumf@#k County Memorial Hospital emergency room. My roommate Keith found out the hard way that even relieving yourself outdoors can be challenging in the snow, attempting to injure a rock attacking from above with the cunning use of his chin.

The weekend also saw a couple of lines from waitresses that were absolute web-gem nominees. The attractive girl in town (I assume there's only one) who happened to wait on us the second night opened with, "Hey guys. Kill anything today?" While another at breakfast Sunday morning uttered, "Hi guys, my name is Jessica and I'll be your waitress....You're in for a treat." We learned soon thereafter it was her first Sunday on the job. She later pronounced, "Sorry I was late coming back over to take your order here. I'm a piss-poor waitress." It's funny that the simple fact of her admitting these things to us pretty much guaranteed that she could screw up as much a she wanted and it wouldn't matter to us.

Ah, the Cabin Weekend;

Beer and fried food: $80
Hours of Xbox, Wiffleball, dice, and cards: 34.7
Feelings shared: 0
Guy-style personal therapy: Priceless