On the 3rd night, the women decided to play a game. One of them had taken something like ‘cards against humanity’ and revamped it with personal questions. It was amazing how much work she put into it to make it unique.

I was super impressed. Then, again, I’m the guy who made his own game of thrones game. Out of bottle caps, duck tape and some of my own hair.

All the guys, young and old, were not allowed to be there. Not even on the same floor.

Imagine a room filled with women aged 20 – 95. Imagine questions like, “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve licked whip cream off of?” Could you answer that question in front of your mom? Your daughter? Your grandmother?”

Yikes!!!

Personally, I was glad not to be there. No amount of alcohol could make me tell my mom about my private time habits. Had I been asked to play, I would have had to fake a heart attack.

So we guys came up with a plan.

And here’s how guys come up with a plan. Someone suggests something and everyone hates it. Beers are drunk. Another plan is suggested, and a few agree but it’s like herding cats and most would rather do a dozen different things. More beer is had. Multiple ideas are floated. There is yelling. Foul language is used when offering an opinion on an idea. Beers are finished and the hard liquor is brought out. Small packs wander off to do their own thing. In our case, some went off to play pool. Some to play foosball. Some, like me, headed out to play bocce ball. On the beach. In the dark.

However, it’s not as silly as you’d think as one of the geniuses in our brain-trust actually brought glow in the dark balls. He also brought a lot of beer. He also gave me some.

He became my new best friend.

Anyway, we stumbled down to the beach, drinks in hand, the younger boys and youngest girl joining us. Wait, what, a girl? I know, but there was no way a 6 year old should hear what was going on upstairs.

“So, Baba, can you tell me what your man did to get you in the mood?”

Yeah. Better she be with us beer-drinking, foul-mouthed, bocce-ball carrying mo-fos.

We had about 16 guys (well, 15 and one super tiny, cute girl.) The hard-core bocce guys went off to play with their balls, while I (and the dad from the Ripley’s Museum), went off with the kids.

Now I don’t want to say that I was awesome but I was. We also had a teenager with us and say what you want about most teenagers, this guy was amazing. He was so good with the younger kids (and one older guy who had no idea how to play bocce). He showed them how to throw, cheered them on, and made them see this as a fun game and not a violent competition. Again, color me super impressed.

However, the real surprise was the little girl who threw like a professional. First throw, boom, about 2” from that little ball thing we had to throw the big ball at. Ok, a fluke, right? No, she slaughtered us. Even me, and I tried to bribe her with candy.

The Youngest joined me and we made a team of epicness. We lost, sure, but we were still epic and I suspect some creative score-keeping. Yeah, you heard me, ‘creative score-keeping’. No way The Youngest and I lost, we are simply too awesome.

So for about 2 hours, we threw a ball into the darkness, and sometimes the glowiness would go out when it hit the sand, and we’d have to search for it. The little girl lobbed ball after ball with machine-like precision and no matter how many times we saw it, all the guys would look at each other and shake our heads.

Once, when I had to run inside to get a jacket. I covered my ears and shouted, blah, blah, blah, blah as I raced by the room filled with women. I didn’t hear the answer to, “So, Prettiest-girl-in-the-world, what would you do if Joe blogged about your sex life?” My guess it involved a hot poker, duct tape and blindfolds. Wait, that is our….

Nevermind.

Despite the cold, despite more sand in my clothes than I could ever get out, despite running out of beer about half way through the game, I had a great time. The Youngest made some amazing throws himself, and would have gladly stayed out for hours more.

But in we went, marched upstairs to reclaim our house, and found the women not laughing, but smiling at us, all knowing-like. It was spooky.

Nothing was ever said about what went on upstairs. I suspect they had a stripper show up and not the guy who brought the bocce balls (who actually volunteered to do just that.) My guess is that at the end of that evening, all the women knew more about each.

A LOT more.

All I’d learned is that I liked to play Bocce ball in the dark.