A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 23

This is the 9th year in a row I’ve run this series in April.

Today’s story: Scenes From a Divorce Party.

On a Saturday night at any of the strip clubs in Las Vegas, you can probably find two groups of men sitting alongside each other — one celebrating their impending lockdown, the other their release back into the wild. Their nights will be almost identical — the steakhouse dinner to start, the steady binge-drinking that began at noon, and of course, the lap dances that fill the post-midnight hours. The main difference is what the guest of honor’s friends will slur as they toast him with bottle-service vodka: “It’s all over, man,” or “You’re finally free.”

The former is the familiar cry of the bachelor party, a pre-wedding weekend bacchanal that needs no further explanation. While the latter is the theme of the divorce party, a gathering that means different things for different people. Sometimes they’re about trying to forget (e.g., the one-sided affair thrown by Miss USA runner-up Shanna Moakler to commemorate her split from Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker). Sometimes they’re about making it seem like there’s nothing to forget at all (e.g., the joint, very congenial bash thrown by the White Stripes’ Jack White and Karen Elston). And sometimes they’re about exactly what you’d think they’d be about (e.g., here’s the pitch for the “Divorce Party” package at Sapphire, the largest strip club in the world: “For a few glorious hours, we help you and your friends enjoy a carefree world of long legs, perfect breasts, G-strings, Jack Daniels and Budweiser. This is a ‘mother-in-law-free zone’ where the hardest decision you’ll make all night is blonde, brunette or redhead.”).

But they always share one thing in common: An attempt at providing comfort — for the strange new world the divorcé(e) is about to embark upon; for the painful weeks, months and years that led to this evening of spouse-less bonding; and for the fact that they’ve failed at something our society still holds as more sacred than not.

Aaron Aguilar, a booker and host for party-planning company Vegas VIP, says it’s usually a friend of the recently divorced that calls him to book their “I Do / I Don’t” package; the divorcé(e) themselves is typically “too busy with their life in shambles.”

This movie seems pretty easy to figure out: Divorce Party. It’s The Hangover meets Kramer vs. Kramer. Some buddies take out their forlorn pal who just that day signed his divorce papers for a weekend in Vegas. Release! A free man! Party hearty! Something goes awry and chaos ensues…

Hold on. What if unbeknownst to the guys, their pal’s recently decreed ex is also in town to celebrate her newfound freedom with her pals! Parallel and intersecting subplots. Sexual activity between surprising members of the divorcee’s parties. And the inevitable getting back together of the divorced couple…

Whoa, wait a minute. What if this happens!

He [Aguilar] adds that there are also some parties that don’t fit into either category. Once, for example, he took a couple out immediately after their quickie wedding ceremony. They said they wanted to go to a strip club. At first, everything was fine. The new wife bought her new husband lap dances and cheered on the strippers as they performed. But when he disappeared to the private VIP section without her, things took a turn for the worse. She hunted him down, threw a drink in his face, screamed about his tiny dick and then blurted out: “I want a divorce!!!!!”

Aguilar still can’t figure out if this qualifies as a wedding reception or a divorce party.

Newly married. Party down. Hubby and wife transgress against each other on the first night of their marriage. Now they want a quickie divorce on the same day they got married. Somewhere along the line, they cross some Bad Guys, putting them in danger and forced to be a couple again, they discover new depths to each other’s personalities, and fall back in love while figuring a way out their mess. And it’s back to the wedding chapel. Married. Divorced. Remarried. All within 24 hours. Oh, and almost killed.

There you go, my twenty-third story idea for the month. And it’s yours. Free!

Here are links for all the previous posts in this year’s series:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Day 21
Day 22

Each day this month, I invite you to click on RESPONSES and join me to do some further brainstorming. Take each day’s story idea and see what it can become when you play around with it. These are all valuable skills for a writer to develop.

See you in comments. And come back tomorrow for another Story Idea Each Day For A Month.