When:

Sat Oct 22

Where:

Rustic Issaquah

The Fifth Annual BYOP (Bring Your Own Pumpkin) Carving Party is beginning to heat up. Some partygoers sit around a fire in scarves and sweaters as others strip to their underwear or teeny bikinis and clamber into the hot tub. There's tons of alcohol available from a well-stocked bar by the house. Ingeniously, someone hands out nametags, with a red border signifying that the partier is in a relationship, and a gold border identifying hook-up availability (many invitees are camping here tonight, making body heat an important consideration).

Two bands play tonight: Solar Garlic, a Phish cover band ("We'll take any request! Uh... as long as it's a Phish song..."), and Everyday Jones, a folk duo. As people watch the performers, a bulldog steals sips of their beers. The partiers, none the wiser, drink from their cups as the dog tipsily trots away. Only five artistes have actually carved pumpkins (including our Plus One, who fashions a Party-Crasher-o'-Lantern), but nobody minds, especially when country band Creeping Time takes the stage.

Creeping Time at first seem to be jokey honky-tonk, but their Bob Wills–style improvisations prove they love the genre too much to laugh it off. Everyone's dancing, and down in the hot tub a man is smacking his girlfriend's bethonged ass like a bongo in time to the two-step. Soon the hot-tubbers have shimmied up to the dance floor, steam rising off their bodies, and are do-si-do-ing in the middle of the hoedown. Off to the side, a woman begins dancing with the euphorically drunken bulldog and, lordy, it's gonna be one of those nights... recommended

Want The Stranger to cut a face into a gourd at your house party? Email the date, place, time, and party details to partycrasher@thestranger.com.