Speaking of clubs…

This weekend, my friend hosted a surprise 60th-birthday party for her boyfriend at a private club in town.

Let’s put aside, for the moment, the fact that a woman who is exactly my age has a significant other who is about to be 60, and when they appear in public together people DON’T chastise him angrily for defiling a flower of young womanhood, which is what I would expect to happen if I dated a 60-year-old. Let’s talk instead about the boys’ version of a club.

The D——- Club (to use the 19th-century convention) is located a block from our house. We pass it every time we go to or return from town. It’s marked only by a discreet sign, and it has no web presence whatsoever, so for years we’ve wondered what the heck it was.

The first time we passed it, Husband said, “I want a club.”

“You?” I asked, pointing out that he was neither sporty nor social nor philanthropic, the typical raisons d’être for men’s clubs.

“I’m not interested in any of that. I just want a place where I can retire after dinner, drink brandy, and smoke cigars. Like Bertie Wooster and the Drones Club.”

The Palliser novels are rife with men’s clubs of that description, but I told Husband that outside of London or New York or the nineteenth century, that kind of club was probably no longer in vogue.

Fast forward to this weekend, when we got to see the inside of the club and found out that it is in fact a place where men go to hang out, drink brandy and smoke cigars. By design it eschews any sporty, business, or philanthropic purpose.

That started me thinking. What if the mothers’ club raised dues, bought themselves a cool little clubhouse, and turned it into a private bar and lounge for mothers to use to socialize their cares away? Children, men, and improving activities would be expressly forbidden. Wouldn’t that be better than a playgroup, a newsletter, and a Hallowe’en party?

Mothers who drink. Can you imagine the consternation?