Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Spaniard is a Glutton for Punishment

Not really. Spaniard merely didn't know that the birthday party she dropped her son off at wouldn't get over when they said it would. Spaniard is trusting and naive like that and never learns.

This party was at a gaming mall. That sounds like a den of iniquity, but it isn't, really. There's a food court as you enter and up a couple of floors are a bunch of noisy video games that I didn't stay to listen to.

So when I came to pick the kid up,Ii expected the cake to have been cut and only the matter of a return gift pending.

What I found was a game in progress - did I mention the place was done up in blue and while balloons? And you could hear the music two traffic lights away? - two kids were surrounded by a gang of children (of their own respective genders), who were attempting to smother them in toilet paper. Apparently this is how mummies are made. The event organiser was shrieking encouragement into the mike, the music was...let's just say, when I drank the thimbleful of coke I was offered, my ears popped. The girls won. The event organiser managed to sound both hurt and surprised.

Next up was dancing. With the EO acting as choreographer, chief mime, lip synch artist and lead dancer. The kids hopped around and yelled like a bunch of bloodthirsty extras from The Lord of the Flies.

After dinner and the most nauseating cake in the history of birthday parties, the return gifts made me feel even more ill: a huge bag, with three wrapped gifts and a bunch of assorted candy. At least one gift broke before bedtime; another was a vehicle for more candy; the last had a sticker on it to remind you that this was so-and-so's birthday. Last year these folks took the kids to a bookstore and told them they could spend 300 bucks on their own return gifts. I was appalled but I can't decide which is worse.

I think this party was much more fun.

14 comments:

Falstaff said...

My sympathies.

On the bright side, at least your son's still young enough to go to parties where "mummies are made" by children smothering others of their own gender with toilet paper, and the thimblefuls of coke are for drinking.

Space Bar said...

falsie: instead of what? don't spare me (see title of post).

come to think of it, it won't be long now before he'll want cash down and no qs asked about where he's going and what he's going to do on a friend's alleged birthday.

oh god.

Falstaff said...

(remember you asked for this)

As opposed to parties where "mummies" are made by people of opposite genders smothering each other in twos, usually after they've taken a thimbleful of coke up the nose.

Isn't being a parent wonderful? An entire universe of paranoia the rest of us don't have access to.

dipali said...

The last birthday party post hosted a grand party in your comment space.
Let's see what this one does!
But 'buy your own return gift'?
Are these people for real?

SUR NOTES said...

Sweetie, you attended the fag end of the party.

I am at the stage where I have to be there for the entire do.

I levitate.By the way, thats when my empty rooms talk to me.

feedo said...

This sounds like the sort of party I would have loved to attend. No one takes me to a video game parlour anymore :(

Space Bar said...

falsie: i will now settle for nothing less than a gruesome, epic rant.

dipali: i know, right. i think i was too gobsmacked last time and it's taken me a whole year to recover.

of course, i suspect the real reason they decided on pre-packaged return gifts this year is because my son refused to buy stuff for more than a 100 bucks. either that or (more likely) the other kids bought the store up and they didn't know how to refuse them what they greedy hearts and grubby hands desired.

(which is why they hired a whole two floors of a gaming mall this year, of course).

sur: you're kidding, right? even if you levitated, you couldn't call a party room empty. at the very least it will have balloons drfiting ceiling-ward and bursting into your reverie.

feedo: nice to see you here! bet you're waiting until your son grows up, yes?

SUR NOTES said...

the balloons do distract but when i close my eyes, my mind gets special powers. unbeatable powers.

parenting has taught me alot.

Fëanor said...

Wow, a bacchanal of epic proportions. Making mommies and with a fag end. Too much.

Hari Batti said...

I feel your pain. Speaking only from an ecological point of view, not from a manners point of view, though one could argue that at some point those will overlap more than they do now, the tacky book move was preferable. Books don't break as quickly as cheap plastic and they are more likely to be healthy for the brain. They store at least some of the carbon they require and will likely be reuses or recycled at some point. Still, the thought of kids getting a budget to buy their own return gift is disturbing in it's own unique ways, no? I suppose the good news is, in India at least, that plastic toy will probably be melted down and made into a bucket, a mug or a shoe...so who really knows?

Space Bar said...

sur: you're a champ, ya.

feanor: huh? did i say something about fag ends?!

hb: oh it was horrible in every possible way. the kids shred the paper after they were done mummifying themselves; every single, individual candy was gift-wrapped over its own wrapping; cheap plastic, gross food, noise...all of it.

i actually see no reason at all to give kids return gifts.

theinsider said...

Space Bar aunty: They played the mummy game and no one informed them that they got to pull out the organs one by one?

Sometimes I wonder how you monsters expect kids to learn anything when you can't be bothered teach them even the basics.

km said...

when I drank the thimbleful of coke I was offered, my ears popped

hence the phrase, "soda pop".

No, seriously.

Aditi said...

Oh god, return gifts. I have special extra-respect for my mother. She had to compete with army aunties. Those women act like they're on The Apprentice and some guy with comb-over is going to fire them if they did something wrong. There was at least one Omarosa.

I hope you never have to discover drugs in your kid's room. Seriously.