Birthday parties are a fact of life. They are fewer are
farther between now that we’ve entered the mysterious world of tweens, but they
still occur with predictable regularity. Gone, however, are the days when we
parents had to accompany our kids to these shindigs, inevitably at an indoor venue
at 2:00 on a beautiful weekend afternoon. We’d stand around and make small talk with
other parents while our children careened in and out of frightening human habitrails.
We broke up fights, we wiped noses and faces and butts, we endured. We took our
turns hosting the parties, coaching our
kids about how to politely unwrap a crappy present (make eye contact, say thank
you, we’ll exchange it later), making the cakes, paying the bills.
So parents don’t hang out at birthday parties after our kids
reach a certain age. Suddenly the invitations contain drop off and pick up
times, and we enter a secret solidarity with the parents of our children’s
friends, an unspoken understanding that each of our times will come, and we’ll
try to make it as easy as possible on each other. Those are good years.
But then, our kids have the nerve to develop friendships
outside our family’s social circle. Of course we encourage diversity and community
and blah blah blahdy dah, but this creates a dangerous situation in which there
is no solidarity among us parents. We
can’t call bullshit when someone brings home a hideous invitation.
Last weekend – MeMORial day weekend - my girl was invited to a party that was far away, at a
mall, from 5-8 on a Saturday. That’s three strikes. Bullshit!
But they don’t call me mother of the
year for nothing. Of course I said she could go. I figured I’d find a carpool
for at least one leg of the journey. When that attempt fell through, I resigned
myself to the fact that I’d have to kill a few hours at the mall. I invited
forced bribed a couple of teenage boys to join me, I had
credit cards and a book, how bad could it possibly be?
It. Was. Not. Good. I honestly did not realize that there
were malls out here that didn’t boast sunny palm lined walkways in between the
retail establishments. It was one of those building malls where you walked in
and were instantly deprived of all measurable oxygen. It made my eyes sag in
there. No likee. It was a long three
hours. I walked about 80 miles and had dinner with the boys and did manage to
find a few
Eventually, eternally, finally, it was time to fetch the
girl and run for the hills. I just had to pop in to the BabyVegas pizza place
and grab her up and we’d be on her way.
Okyeah almostready wehavefivemoretokens
ipromisedtosharetheprizecrap ijustneedtocashinthese986tickets andohmygodmom ihavetocashthesein
ididallthatfornothing itsnotfairfiveminutesiPROMISE
30 minutes later. Strike four.
This post gives me the heebie-jeebies. 5-8? On Saturday of Memorial Day weekend? At a place called BabyVegas pizza? Are the parents trying to punish you for something? Did you do something to insult or harm them?
ReplyDeleteI feel terribly sorry for you; talk about "itsnotfair". [Shudder]
Congrats on making it out alive.
xoxo
Ellie
BabyVegas pizza? That cannot be a real place! Can it? I guess it must be, I'm calling South Bay or east count on that one!
ReplyDeleteHow did the boys enjoy the whole adventure? I'm very impresses you opted to take them. Mr Can owed!!
xoxo,
Beth
Impressed and
ReplyDeleteIt is not actually called BabyVegasPizza, you dorks. But it's one of those creepy indoor arcade/ride/pizza buffett/nightmare places.
ReplyDeleteYou called it right, Beth. Plaza Bonita. I actually meant to write all about the mall in particular, but I was too traumatized to take photos. Princesa is the stuff of horror flicks.
The boys were not overly impressed, but I bought them love burgers at red robin and they forgave me for the indignity.
xo
Jacquie