The Birthday Party

A few days ago I went to a birthday party. But it wasn’t just any party, it was my cousin’s first birthday party. At first I didn’t know whether I should or I shouldn’t go, sometimes a big family gathered in a small place with kids shouting, crying and running around is not the best plan for a Saturday night.

The moment I got there I knew it was the place I had to be in, the whole situation was completely coo-coo and the only thing I could think of was “is it just me or you’re all insane?”.

The first thing I saw when I walked in was a small crowd shouting and waving their hands to the baby, who was being photographed with his parents. They were unsuccessfully trying to make him look at the camera, and didn’t notice that he was terrified by the flashes (and their screaming, of course). When the waving ceased I saw him: A PHOTOGRAPHER! Who hires a photographer for a baby’s birthday party? Babies hate being photographed! I tried to come closer to him to say something like “hi baby, happy birthday, watch out! Ah, this paparazzis…” but an old unknown woman pushed me and frustrated that attempt. So I couldn’t even say hi to him. I’m sure that if he could speak he’d tell his parents how much of a rude relative I am. But he can’t. Yet.

After the hectic entrance we tried to find a place to sit down, and I want to put a special emphasis in the word try. It’s amazing the amount of strange people you find at family events, there’s always a side of the family you don’t know, a new boyfriend, a friend who just came back from who knows where and many more weird specimens.  The interesting thing is that this people is so nice, welcoming and warm to the ones they know, but very rude to the rest of the world, so much that they wouldn’t move their chairs to make room for us.

We finally managed to get our share of a tiny table. It almost seems like they think that only kids attend to this parties, there’s gotta be space for adults too! Who do you think that’s paying for all that anyway, the baby? Then the food wars came along. All kinds of drinks, snacks and appetizers were served, to everyone except us, because the “strangers” kept interrupting the waitresses to steal our food. Shame on them. By this point I dare to say everyone had forgotten about the baby, who was playing with other kids and trying to escape from both the photographer and the crazy aunts. There was a moment when I thought “it’s ok, I can give him my dark glasses”, but that would have meant having to actually look at people when they are talking to me, so I didn’t. I don’t really understand the concept of rudeness, if I tell someone I don’t want to talk to them because I find them ridiculously stupid, isn’t that honesty? Isn’t it worse to fake interest?

When the food ran out, I saw myself involved in the kind of conversation where an older person, usually a woman, asks things like “why are you single?” or “what are you going to do with your life?” Personally, I’m quite sick of those so I just fired back with “I’ve slept with a few but I haven’t been fully satisfied yet” and, “who knows? Anything may happen, here’s hoping you don’t live to see that, you selfish bitch”.

Fortunately, the cake arrived before I could say anything else to damage even more the image that they had of me. We all started singing happy birthday and then, Barney comes out, out of the blue. I just couldn’t believe it. I mean, we all know he’s fake, and the little boy doesn’t recognize him. It’s not like when he grows up he’ll go around saying “-You know what? I had a celebrity in my first birthday party. –Oh really? Who was it? – BARNEY THE DINOSAUR!”. Let’s face it that ain’t gonna surprise anybody. Kids are cruel.

When leaving, I started to think about the poor little boy, all that screaming and craziness. Is that the image he has of the rest of us? What would he think about the giant purple dinosaur? I tried to think as if I was him, and I realized that, for him, life was just a very short period of time, where you are a very small thing surrounded by big things that do stuff like feed you and change your diapers, and then one day they take you to a place with colorful balls, a cake and a big purple dinosaur, and a man takes photos of you and everyone else in that place.

To summarize, let’s just say it was an interesting experience, that gave me loads to think about.

Mademoiselle Juliettè,

I don't know why but I have the feeling that I'll regret posting this. It's quite awful really.