Last Friday Night – Katy Perry ~ Losers

~ There's a stranger in my bed/ There's a pounding my head/ Glitter all over the room/ Pink flamingos in the pool/ I smell like a minibar/ DJ's passed out in the yard/ Barbie's on the barbeque/ This a hickie or a bruise?

"One of these nights, we're gonna have to strap a camera onto these idiots so we can see what the hell they get up to. I mean, we end up helping mop up the messes. We deserve to get some amusement out of them."

Jolene nodded her head, finding no fault in Jackie Jensen's logic. She stood with the other woman, peering out into the backyard at the remains of Shitstorm Losers that had rolled through New Hampshire the previous night.

There was a reason the team usually chose to vacation at Jackie's rural farmhouse. With no neighbors in visual range, there wouldn't be any inconvenient questions as to the insanity the team got up to.

For example, this morning the remains of a bonfire were still merrily burning in the fire pit. That wasn't all that odd, but the fact that they were burning a phone pole instead of the pile of firewood beside the barn was.

A phone pole.

That was pretty high up on the drunk-theft scale.

Two alpacas were happily grazing a safe distance from the fire, though one of them was dyed a vibrant shade of blue and, if possible, seemed disgruntled about it. What appeared to be the remains of a large pig was still turning on an improvised spit over the flames, overcooked by now, but more than half devoured.

Aisha was passed out on an lime green floatie in the middle of the small duck pond, clutching a machete like it was a teddy bear. Clay was on the picnic table, curled around a bottle of Jack Daniels. Pooch had managed to make his way onto the porch stairs, but had clearly lost the strength to go further and was snoring into the wood. Shockingly (for them) everyone of them seemed to be wearing the clothes they had been wearing when they left the previous night.

Of course, Jensen and Cougar were still unaccounted for.

"Jess, wanna go find Uncle Jake and Uncle Cougar?" Jackie urged her daughter, who raised an eyebrow in return.

"Mom," she said, in the tone every tween seemed to have mastered, "we always find them in the same places. Cougar's gonna be in a tree and Uncle Jake will either be on the roof of the house or the barn."

Jackie smiled at her daughter and chuckled. Kids, they grew up so fast. Any day now, Michael would be walking.

Hopefully, he wouldn't inherit his father's nose for trouble.

"Look!" Jess said, pointing to the tree line. "Cougar's hand!"

Squinting, Jolene saw the dangling limb and grinned. "Good eyes, kiddo."

Five minutes later, they had located Jensen, clad in red, white and blue boxers and his Petunia's T-shirt, on top of the barn. Jackie sighed and turned the hose on him, but his only reaction was to roll over so he could catch some of the water in his mouth.

Having located all of their wayward idiots, Jolene and Jackie gathered up Jess and Mike and headed out to the local IHOP for breakfast.

They'd deal with everyone else later.