Until 5 years ago, I was living in Regina, Saskatchewan- a small city of 200,000 people somewhere near the middle of Canada. It was a pretty quiet town, full of old people and government workers. The shopping there was terrible…there was one clothing store worth shopping at and the malls would have died if there weren’t grocery stores in them.

One such mall needed a new gimmick to attract attention, so they hosted the Regina Bachelor competition. It was similar to the popular reality show- 25 women competing for the attention of one man- except that it mostly took place in a mall and aired on the local radio station. This was before being single became one of my top characteristics, and I thought it would be funny to enter.

I had to fill out an application and send in a picture. Naturally, because of my insanely good looks, I got picked in the top 25. The first day, in the food court, we had to spend 30 seconds telling him about ourselves. So, naturally, I got picked to be in the top 12. The next date involved snow-shoe racing…me being super fit, I, of course, got picked to be in the top whatever…and so it went. (Note- the rose ceremony was done live, on the radio).

Our dates were never one-on-one, and usually involved alcohol and a bar. The guy was some 40-year-old firefighter who wore Bill Cosby sweaters (I was 24 at the time, so that was old). He was not an attractive man, or even cool…he just thought he was because the desperate women his age loved the fact that he was a firefighter.

At first, things went pretty well, and all the girls were getting along. When we got to the top 6 or so, things started getting catty. When I used to watch the Bachelor on TV, I used to think the girls were just putting on a show to win the prize, and that they couldn’t be as catty as they were…then I saw 6 women fighting for the #1 spot with some douche-bag in a bad sweater.

It started one night when we were all out at a concert (some band from the 70’s that was playing at the casino) and planned to all go to a bar together. Half of us were told to go to one bar, and the other half went to another, along with the Bachelor. About 1/2 an hour after we got to the bar, we realized the Bachelor wasn’t coming. There are never more than 2 bars open on the same night in Regina, so it didn’t take a genius to figure out where the rest of them would be, so we headed over to the other bar (the Pump).

On the way there, another one of the girls was bitching about how unfair this whole thing was. Why should the other 3 girls get to spend more time with him than us? Weren’t we all supposed to have an equal opportunity? I’m all about fairness, so I started getting pissed off too. When I’m drunk, I don’t do “angry” very well.

I marched into the Pump, found the Bachelor, and freaked on him for being so unjust. He had this deer in the headlights kind of look…and pretended he had nothing to do with it. Whatever. I got a drink or ten and carried on with my night.

The next rose ceremony was about a week later at 6pm. Right after work, I had a beer with my coworkers then set off for the mall. I had some time to kill, so I stopped in at a shoe store to browse around. I got to talking with the sales lady and told her that I was on my way to the Bachelor competition. I told her that I was hopeful of walking away with a rose that day though, because I had yelled at the Bachelor on our last date. She asked what my name was, and when I told her, she said that she was really good friends with the Bachelor, and that he had told her the story, and he planned on keeping me on to the next round, which was top 3.

Sweet. I was in the clear.

The ceremony starts up, after a quick fashion show put on by us, and of course, my name is called. When I go up, I pretend to act surprised, like as if I was sure I was getting kicked off. Apparently I am a bad actor and ended up just looking like a fool, so when I got to the stage, the Bachelor thought I was drunk. On live radio, he said “You’re drunk Darcie. I can smell it on you.” I tried to tell him I had only one beer before coming, but it was live radio, so I got shuffled down.

Fine, I made it to top 3. What did I care? I was getting better prizes each time I moved up. Another contestant, on the other hand, did care. She wasn’t so lucky, and didn’t move up. I’m guessing it was her 1982 hair cut, but that’s just speculation. She confronted the Bachelor. The snippets I caught between her sobbing “Why her? You know she’s a drunk!….She yelled at you! What? Do you like being abused?…You know you just picked her because she’s hot!” Note: this was the same girl who drove me to the other bar the week before and who told me that I should yell at him. I think she was trying to sabotage me.

I can’t remember if there was a date in the meantime, but I didn’t get a rose at the next ceremony. I wasn’t too upset, but my ego was probably a little bruised. My sister’s friend drunk called him that night and told him he was an ugly loser…that was some consolation.

Anyway, I ended up getting around $1000 worth of prizes from different places in the mall, so it all worked out. I heard from another contestant later on that he and the ultimate winner colluded together before the show to split the trip or whatever it was they won.

I ran into the Bachelor a few months later at the Pump. To be polite, I went up to him to talk. I asked him if he enjoyed being Regina’s Bachelor. Our conversation:

Bachelor: Yeah, I did…except that my house got broken into 3 times because of it.

Me: (laughing hysterically and really drunk) You were the REGINA Bachelor. It was on the RADIO. No one in the world except the contestants cared! Your house got broken into because you live in a shitty part of town! (continuing to laugh hysterically and drunkenly)

Bachelor: You know what Darcie, you are a bitch. You are a drunk bitch.

Me: (laughing hysterically and really drunk) Ok (walk away, drunkenly, and laughing hysterically).

Moral: none. I’m a drunken bitch.

Tags: Pump, Regina Bachelor