Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 399, A Bachelor Party.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 399.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
On it, you can find a learning guide for this episode to help you improve your English even faster.
This episode is called A Bachelor Party...
A bachelor party is a party for a man who is about to be married.
Usually it is a party that is organized by his friends.
Let's get started.
My best friend, Saul, is getting married.
As the best man, it was up to me to plan a bachelor party he'd never forget.
All of the groomsmen were chipping in, so we went all out.
I invited everybody over to my apartment.
Instead of going to a strip club, we hired a stripper.
Before the stripper arrived, we played some drinking games and we gave Saul some gag gifts.
We all started to get pretty bombed, but we weren't thinking of the hangover we'd have the next day.
When the stripper arrived...
We told her to give Saul a lap dance.
He had never had one before and he was really embarrassed.
But the best part was when Saul saw the stripper.
It was a man.
Everyone had a good laugh. and we took some pictures so we'd have incriminating evidence.
We poked fun at him for the rest of the night.
And as best man, what was my most important job of all?
It was not letting his fiancée find out what happened that night, at least not before the wedding.
We'll be right back.
But some people have bachelor parties and the reputation of a bachelor party is that there's a lot of drinking, a lot of things going on that the wife might not be very happy about, or at least the bride who is getting married, the woman.
Bachelor parties are traditionally just for men.
In this case...
The story talks about how his best friend, Saul, is getting married.
The best man in a wedding is the man who helps the groom get ready, and It's basically however, just the person who stands next to the groom.
Usually it's one of the best friends or a brother of the man getting married.
A bachelor party, as we said, is a party for a man usually, or again traditionally, on the night before he gets married.
It's his last night of being a bachelor.
A bachelor is a man who is not married, at least not yet.
The narrator of our story says it was up to me to plan the party.
When we say something is up to you or up to me or up to him, it means it depends on me.
It's my responsibility.
It's my decision.
Your wife may say to you, do you want to go to have Italian food or Chinese food tonight?
And you say, it's up to you, my love.
It's your decision.
That's what I always say to my wife.
It's up to you, dear.
All of the groomsmen were chipping in So we went all out, he says.
The groomsmen are the other men who are in what we would call the wedding party, the group of people who stand with the bride and groom, usually at the front of the church or the front of the synagogue or temple or just the place where they are getting married.
Not every wedding has groomsmen, or at least not every wedding has more than one.
I had my brother as my best man, but I did not have any groomsmen.
However, it depends on the wedding and how big the wedding is, how many people are there.
Some weddings have lots of groomsmen.
In this case, the groomsmen are Chipped in.
To chip in is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to give money to help pay for something.
Usually it's what a group of people will do.
They're buying a gift for someone in their office.
Everyone will chip in $5.
Everyone will donate or give money for this common gift.
In this case, the groomsmen were chipping in to pay for the party.
Because they had money, they went all out.
The expression to go all out means to do something as much as possible or in as big a way as possible.
I'm going to go all out.
When I celebrate my 20th wedding anniversary, i'm going to have a big party.
There's going to be food and music.
The beatles are going to be there.
It's going to be huge.
I'm going to go all out.
I invited everybody over to my apartment.
The story continues Instead of going to a strip club, we hired a stripper.
A strip S-T-R-I-P club is a business where people, usually women, dance while taking off their clothes, sometimes until they have no more clothing on.
The men are sitting and watching.
Usually a strip club is a bar or serves alcohol.
Strip clubs are traditional places for someone to have their bachelor party.
But I don't think it is as common as it was perhaps 30 or 40 years ago.
I don't really know.
I don't go to those kinds of clubs, those kinds of places.
A stripper is the person again usually a woman who takes off her clothes for money while dancing to music.
So in this story they hired a stripper, or at least that's the way it seems from the story at the beginning.
Before the stripper arrived, we played some drinking games and we gave Saul some gag gifts.
A drinking game is a game where, where everyone has to take a drink of alcohol, depending on what happens in the game.
So, for example, when I was younger and would go to a bar with my friends, a popular drinking game at the bar would be quarters.
You would put the quarter on your nose and let it drop, And the idea was that it had to bounce or go up into the alcohol.
And if you did that, you took a drink or everyone else in your group took a drink.
There are lots of different drinking games.
I don't play any of them, at least not anymore.
A gag, G-A-G, gift says, is also very popular at a bachelor party.
It's something you give another person as a joke to make them laugh.
So it's not a real gift.
If your son or daughter asks you for a new car and you say okay sure, and you give them a little small toy car, that would be a gag gift.
It may not make them laugh, but you would certainly laugh.
We all started to get pretty bombed, the story says.
But we weren't thinking of the hangover we'd have the next day.
To get bombed means to get drunk, to drink too much alcohol.
Bomb has a couple of different meanings in English.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
So, the person in the story and his friends were drinking a lot.
They weren't thinking of the hangover they'd have the next day.
A hangover, H-A-N-G-O-V-E-R, one word... is a very painful headache the morning after you have been doing a lot of or too much drinking.
If you drink too much alcohol, the next morning, you may know, can sometimes be a little unpleasant.
Your head hurts, for example.
You have a headache.
When the stripper arrived...
We told her to give Saul a lap dance.
So the stripper comes to the party, and her job is to entertain these men by taking off her clothes.
They told her to give Saul a lap dance.
Your lap, L-A-P, is...
What you have when you sit down, the top of your legs, that's called your lap.
A lap dance is when a usually again woman who's wearing very little clothing would sit on your legs and move in a sexual way.
Not actually having sex, but trying to get the man excited.
That's a lap dance.
Again, no personal experience with that.
He had never had one before.
His friend Saul had never had a lap dance before, and he was really embarrassed.
I would be too.
But the best part... was when Saul saw the stripper.
Remember, the stripper is at a bachelor party, going to be a woman.
That's who you would expect.
But this stripper was a man.
It was a joke that they were playing on, a joke that they made for Saul.
It wasn't a woman, it was a man dressed as a woman.
Everybody had a good laugh and we took some pictures so we'd have incriminating evidence.
Evidence is proof, something that proves you did something.
It could be good, it could be bad.
Incriminating evidence is is evidence that shows you did something wrong, something bad, something illegal perhaps.
In this case, the pictures of the male stripper with Saul aren't actually incriminating in a legal way.
They're being used here to show other people that Saul was part of this joke.
He says we poked fun at Saul for the rest of the night.
To poke fun at someone means to make fun of someone, to laugh at someone.
The story ends by the narrator saying, And as best man, what was my most important job of all?
It was not letting Saul's fiancée find out what happened that night, at least not before the wedding.
Your fiancé or fiancée is the person that you are marrying.
If there are two e's at the end of the word, it's the woman that the man is marrying.
And if there's just one e, it's the man that, traditionally, the woman is marrying.
Now let's listen to the story, this time at a normal speed.
My best friend Saul is getting married.
As the best man, it was up to me to plan a bachelor party he'd never forget.
All of the groomsmen were chipping in, so we went all out.
I invited everybody over to my apartment.
Instead of going to a strip club, we hired a stripper.
Before the stripper arrived, we played some drinking games and we gave Saul some gag gifts.
We all started to get pretty bombed, but we weren't thinking of the hangover we'd have the next day.
When the stripper arrived, we told her to give Saul a lap dance.
He had never had one before, and he was really embarrassed.
But the best part was when Saul saw the stripper.
It was a man.
Everybody had a good laugh and we took some pictures so we'd have incriminating evidence.
We poked fun at him for the rest of the night.
And as best man, what was my most important job of all?
It was not letting his fiancée find out what happened that night, at least not before the wedding.
The script for this episode is by Dr. Lucy Saye, who will never be incriminated.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2008.
