Oh, bachelorette parties. These fetes of female revelry are supposed to be the quintessential “last night out” as an unmarried woman, a chance to get real drunk and party with your girlfriends before entering the sanctity of marriage, where apparently getting inappropriately tanked and dancing on tables is frowned upon. As the token single friend in most of my groups, it’s also a chance for them to convince me to fulfill their last single-girl fantasies, dancing with strangers and encouraging a drunken makeout, just one more time. Say those two words to anyone and their first image is women in matching t-shirts and someone in a bad veil, a bunch of penis-shaped memorabilia and woo girls trying to creep into gay bars, screeching how much they love each other and demanding photos all night. For some, it sounds like hell. For me, it sounds like a damn good weekend for some PLDs.

This weekend was the bachelorette party for the first of my childhood friends getting married, a lead-in to what I’m affectionately referring to as Hell Week at work (though is more accurately Hell 12 Days Because I’m Working This Weekend Ugh). I went into the party weekend with a solid plan: get into Philly on Saturday, bachelorette activities with said childhood friend during the day, breaking off for a bit to meet my soul sister E for dinner, and meet up with the bachelorette crew for dancing all night. Gorgeous weather and an easy bus ride into Philly set the bar for the weekend, which spoiler alert: didn’t disappoint.

Seems legit.

After a few days of being mopey and cranky, the chance to hang out with old and new friends, riding a Pedicycle around Philadelphia while people cheered and offered congratulations, wearing these fantastic matching t-shirts the bride had made herself, was perfect. I complained, admittedly, about the t-shirts to my lovely friend M before the weekend, annoyed at being forced into something so stereotypically bachelorette, but in the end it was perfect. The shirts made the party absolutely bachelorette without being obnoxious, a way to identify ourselves to strangers and bartenders without the need for a giant dick drawn somewhere on the bride-to-be. Bachelorette parties leave the wedding stress behind to celebrate girlfriends, no boy drama, no any drama. Just matching tshirts and lots of fun.

However, planning for a long day and night of drinking which would be followed by a last-minute flight to Indianapolis on Sunday for work meant I had two main goals: stick to beer (fail) and remember to drink water (epic fail). Sunday morning brought a miserable hangover of legendary proportions for both E and I as we woke up disoriented in the hotel, remnants of 2 a.m. room service littering the duvet. Bless her heart that she still had the stamina to drive me to the airport, where she only had to pull over once on the highway so I could vomit the small amount of hydration I was able to ingest prior to leaving the hotel. As the hours ticked, ticked on, waiting in the airport for my flight which was delayed once, twice and then again, I felt a migraine creeping in, a final middle finger to my day drinking extravaganza. I’ve never felt so miserable on a plane before, turbulence mixed with hangover mixed with migraine, cursing WHY WHY WHY did I have that last beer, WHY didn’t I drink more water, and WHY did I ever start drinking alcohol in the first place?!

There’s nothing like a hell of a hangover to remind you that you aren’t, in fact, 21 years old anymore, something that should have been more obvious by the fact that I was drinking to commemorate the impending wedding of a friend. That may even be the real point of the bachelorette fiesta, a reminder that as much as we loved to party back in the day, growing up changes things. Here’s hoping I’ll be able to comport myself with a bit more dignity at her wedding later this summer, which I think should be easy. After all, I’ve had my years drinking with her and making PLDs. Despite the lack of penis-shaped anything, this last hurrah was the send off that a lifetime of an incredible friendship deserves, one to remember as she gets ready to start her life as a Missus.