Tell Me What You Really Think

I stood over her sprawled out on the floor covered in cake. Her perfect makeup was perfectly messed up and her hair was covered in icing. I made the universal wrestling symbol for ‘the championship belt is mine’, which seemed strangely appropriate but of course she, being highly refined, didn’t get it. She started stammering something but I cut her off and leant down low, pointed in her face and whispered, “Why won’t you just shut up?”

I hate hosting parties at my house. I hate the idea of people touching my stuff, comparing my shitty stuff to their awesome stuff, rolling their eyes over the stuff that I give them to eat, and checking out the crap stuff I wear. Because of this I’ve somehow managed to avoid having parties at my house for my kids. Yay me. High fives all around. But, this was only avoiding the inevitable.

“Mum, for my seventh birthday I want to invite Noel, Liam, Paul, Paul and Tony to come over to play Mario Brothers with me.” *Not their real names, although the original members of Oasis would have more welcome, headbutts, destruction and all.

It was like nails on a chalkboard. The very idea of having a party here put me into the kind of panic that only Xanax can cure.

“Sure honey. We’ll make it the best birthday ever.” I lied. I forgot to send the invitations – accidentally on purpose. Maybe he would forget about the party and I wouldn’t have to have one for him.

Um, no. I was chastised by the husband for forgetting and messing up my kid’s party. Way to go me! Six days before my son’s birthday I hastily hand wrote invites to the kids and shipped them off to school. My logic was with the handmade invites I’d get sympathy RSVPs from the parents and my selfish delay wouldn’t mess up my son’s party.

I waited.

And waited.

The last kid RSVP’d two hours before the party – with a catch. Liam* was slightly anxious so his mom was coming to sit with him… in my house…. with me… and my stuff… for three freaking hours. I was thrilled.

The kids all had a wonderful time. My son was beaming as all of his friends had shown up and he was king for the day. I was so happy for him. Really, I was. It was just me who was suffering as I had to play nice with Liam’s* mom who would not shut up. She didn’t stop. Not for a minute.

She was gossiping, telling stories, bitching, comparing, boasting and gloating. I tried to shut her up with coffee. Nope. Tea? Nope. Fruit tray? Nope. After listening to two and a half hours of endless, inane bullshit coming out of her mouth, I’d had enough.

I didn’t want to hear any more about the teachers at the school, the kids who got into the play versus the ones who didn’t, the karate classes, the annoying woman that was being dealt with at baseball games. I didn’t care. The cake was in front of me. I looked at it. I looked at her. It was a crappy last minute cake that I was waiting for her to comment on anyhow so I didn’t care. I shoved it in her face and she fell to the floor.

At least that was what I wanted to do. In reality she finally shut up when I shut my front door after politely thanking her for coming. She went back to her awesome house and I went back to my stuff.

I’m Susan but I have also been known as Burrows, Rabbit, Suz, Su-chan, and @kungfupussy. I am a freelance writer, voice over artist, blogger, world traveler, smart-arse, art lover, music snob, photographer, the one with the accent, tea drinker, dual citizen and lover of hockey. Life so far has involved going from Australia to Japan to the USA. What happens next is anyone’s guess.