What is the Catch and Release Program? (Blush)

It's a state of mind... a preemptive strike... a road map for sanity... a culmination of lessons learned... and a sisterhood whose ties are stronger than boyfriends, relatives, bosses and occasionally children.

It's a posse of "How did I become single?" women who banded together less than a year ago - some longer. We have grown into each other's best friends, family, comic relief, sounding boards and emotional rocks. As we navigate home, careers, blood relatives, ex's and new relationships, it has become as essential as breathing to check in with one another. We celebrate, console, commisserate, bad mouth, question, support and obsess together.

The Catch and Release Program was born at our favorite watering hole, "A Slice of Heaven." On the hunt for diversion, companionship and laughter to shake off the week, the posse makes the pilgrimage several times a month to this beacon in the night. Coined "Catch and Release" by a random (victim) tourist, the program allows for innocent flirting, olympic-level mocking, and always, always an evening of laughter....

“A Slice of Heaven” is the Alaska of South Texas. Ten men crammed into the place for every woman. It was the dingiest, skankiest, smokiest bar in the tiny town. The marquee outside boasts 365 nights of karaoke. Mostly bad karaoke. Very bad karaoke. Vacationing past-their-prime drunken moms in overstretched tube tops screeching out “Harper Valley PTA”, bad karaoke. Dangerously inebriated twenty-something boys shouting the lyrics to “Highway to Hell” bad. Because if it’s louder, apparently the key doesn’t matter.

Many members of the posse refused to go there, which the Fab Four came to terms with eventually. In fact, as events unfolded at A Slice of Heaven week after week, the subgroup agreed to stop talking up their getaway hangout – less competition that way. Although it was a 30 minute drive from home, it was a world away, both in class and clientele. There was little fear of running into the administrators, local officials or business leaders that they dealt with day in and day out. There the mini posse was free to let their hair down, reveal some leg or other enticing attribute, and flirt with every interesting male who walked through the door, which they did. It was a wonderful practice ground for those in the group that were newly single. Although there were some “regulars” that brought a sense of safety, there was also a smattering of tourists who somehow stumbled into this local’s hangout every week.

The large Christmas bulbs that adorned the exterior of A Slice of Heaven year-round were like a beacon from the far edge of the town’s main strip. There was no sense in ever getting to Heaven before midnight. That was usually early enough to get a prime seat at the bar, but well before the Mardi Gras began each evening at 1am. They called A Slice of Heaven the club of last resort. If you hadn’t hooked up with anyone before 1am, your best bet was to get yourself to Heaven. There you would be gently mashed and mixed together with the biggest buffet of possibilities imaginable in this small, backwater community.

Paradoxically, parking was never an issue at A Slice of Heaven. Unlike some of the more mainstream clubs, which would require a 2 block hike from the outlying lots, Heaven’s parking area only sported a handful of cars. When they barreled into the lot in Amber’s tank of a Tahoe, there was never a fear of dinged doors or sideswiping a soul. Yet, as they maneuvered on the wooden sidewalks passed giggly intoxicated girls and their rambunctious dates who had already had enough, they could feel the thumping of the place beneath their feet.

And when they opened the doors, they were finding more often that there were no seats at the bar. So they stood elbow to elbow sometimes trying to stay out of the traffic streaming in behind them, and sometimes strategically placing themselves in the pathway of whomever caught their eye. The empty parking lot suggested that most of the locals must crawl into Heaven as they awakened from their first drunk of the evening, ready to go another round. The tourists, of course, took cabs. And they imagined more than one girlfriend kicking her once-beloved’s butt out the car door as she barely slowed to a stop in front of the place that was at the center of their latest row. He would roll over a couple of times before he came to a stop, picked himself up, and staggered in through the front door of Heaven with a drunken smile of relief on his face.