"I am afraid, I am not any fun. I don't have any stories that end with me peeing in someone else's bed"--Lauren

Lauren's older sister, Ashley, is getting married at year's end to her high school sweetheart. Ashely's a sorority girl who now works in PR while Lauren is a practical girl who works in Market Research--at Maxim, mind you. Lauren and Ashley are roughly two years apart which made for great sibling rivalry and general disdain in high school but has lead to a healthy sisterly bond in the post-collegiate years.

Recently, Lauren--who lives with her former co-worker/boyfriend--has spent copious amounts of time with Ashley given that her wedding is looming and their father had been recently diagnosed with cancer. He's doing well but the family has grown much closer off late.

Last weekend at Ashley's bridal shower which comes in the wake of a wicked bachelorette party--that Lauren spent much of the week that followed recovering from--a rather telling tale was revealed.

It seems that Ashely was defined in her friend circle by this rather unusual story:
About a year ago--at the ripe age of 27.5--Ashley attended a drunken frat fest at a fellow couple's abode. Her fiancee was out of town at the time and she proceeded to pass out on the couple friend's couch in the midst of the raging kegger around her due to her heavily inebriated post happy hour condition. However, around 3am as the party was winding down she awakened groggy and bleary eyed--grabbed her purse and stumbled out of the apartment without so much as a backward glance. The couple assumed she would fall into a cab and make her way home.

However, she resurfaced the next morning as the unsuspecting couple was eating breakfast with a rather conspicious wet patch in the groin and her bag slung over one shoulder. It appears she had woken up in a bed she assumed was the couple's based on the overhead view of trees and buildings only to feel a wetness around her. Upon sitting up to inspect her surroundings she discovered that she had not only wet herself but was in an unfamiliar room--no matter how familiar the view--belonging to a cross-dresser or girly girl. She then quickly found her bag and peeked sheepishly outside the bedroom door into the empty living room before fleeing the scene. It was revealed upon examining the front door of the apartment she had spent the night in that she was one floor down from her friends' place and had wet some stranger's bed.

The rip roaring laughter that ensued around Lauren led her to question her fun factor. She related this tale of hilarity to us at tea last night in a somber tone with the concluding question: "Am I just not that much fun?" Of course, we hastened to assure her that she was funner than fun and no amount of peeing in strangers' beds would make Ashely more fun than Lauren.

But it begs the question...Where do our insecurities come from? After all, Lauren is a successful, petite woman who lives with a committed partner in a very cute apartment in Park Slope with two cats. How could she genuinely question her self-image when a story relating to her older sister's proclivity to pee in beds, closets, kitchens is told?