As I ascend ever higher into my twenties, two things are starting to happen, and they're intrinsically linked.
- More and more of my friends are getting engaged
- I'm being sent more and more stag-do invitations
This might seem like cause for celebration - and for my newly-betrothed friends I'm sure it is - but for me it represents a scourge upon my bank balance hitherto unwitnessed in my modest 25 years upon this earth.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that stag dos - or bachelor parties if you prefer - are some of the most expensive events it is possible to attend. Indeed, it sometimes feels as though the entire weekend (it's always a weekend) has been organised to accrue as high a cost as humanly possible in a 48 hour time period.
Paintballing, go-kart racing, pub golf, VIP tables at lurid red-carpeted nightclubs; it all costs money, as does the 'budget' hotel you're staying in and the 46 shots you're obliged to buy for the groom-to-be over the course of one sweat-fuelled night of wild limb-flailing dancing and regrettable 4am kebab consuming.
I hate to be the grinch that stole the stag do, but they really are awful events enjoyed only by the groom-to-be and possibly the best man at a push.
It would seem, though, that I may well be in the minority in holding this opinion, after news emerged that one chap with a particular lust for life actually flew out to join a stag do he was only invited to by accident.
Will Novak was inadvertently copied in to a group email about an upcoming stag do due to typo in an email address. Novak didn't know any of the men who would be in attendance at the 'do - a skiing trip to Vermont for groom-to-be Angelo - but responded to the invitation by entering into the true spirit of a stag-do;
"I do not know who Angelo is. I am a Will Novak who lives in Arizona. Vermont seems like a very far way for me to travel for the bachelor party of a guy I've never met.
"That being said: f*cking count me in!"
Novak decided to let fate - and his Facebook friends - decide whether he would actually go through with the plan to attend the bachelor party, posting the thread of what had happened to Facebook and asking;
"So I ask you Facebook, should I leave my wife and 9 monthchild behind to go to a bachelor party of a man I've never met on the other side of the country? Because right now, I'm leaning yes!"
As you might have gathered by this point, he went.
"I made it. I have no reception. I'm gonna pass out," he updated his followers upon his arrival.
Having set up a GoFundMe page to help him get to the bachelor party, Novak flew 2,500 miles to get to Vermont, and even updated his GoFundMe page to give others an idea of how the whole trip went;
"#AngelosBachelorParty was a big success!!!"
"No one died, or even got arrested! Though the other Will Novak did dislocate his shoulder whilst trying to 'shred the gnar'."
He also discovered that groom-to-be Angelo and his bride-to-be were expecting a baby, and said that any excess fees he didn't need for the trip would be given to them.
