Monday, September 24, 2012

Cockroaches and Glitter

If by some terrible turn of events in our future, we, as a planet experience some kind of nuclear holocaust, I have discovered there will be more than just cockroaches that will remain.

There will also be glitter.

I was unfortunate enough to have to take The Divine Miss M to a 5th birthday party yesterday. The party in itself was not the part for which I am unfortunate. The problem was that it was a fairy themed party.

Now before you go all grouchy ungrateful mum on me, I'm just not a fancy dress sort of person. I'm not into themed parties for any age celebration and don't even get me started on the awful trend of themed weddings. But I digress.

So, The Divine Miss M was invited to Olivia's fairy birthday party. Now, no where on the invitation did it say 'please dress your child as a fairy' but I took the safe option, having watched Bridget Jones live my worst nightmare of turning up to a party and be the only person dressed up, and I dressed her in girly sort of clothes and threw a new set of wings and wand in the car to match for good measure. At this point, there was already glitter on my hands, jeans, in my hand bag and my car. The car is not really a place that concerns me as glitter is just one of thousands of things you may or may not find in there on any given day. Animal, vegetable, mineral. You pick a category. But once again, I digress.

So, The Divine Miss M and I hook on her wings and walk up the driveway of a house we've never been to, owned by a person I've never met for a party of a little girl I've never laid eyes on. This is not something which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. I might write like someone who couldn't give a shit about what people think of me, in fact most of the time I look like that person but on the inside, I am absolutely cacking myself. I mean, what if it's the wrong house? Or the wrong day? (I've done that one before with Number 1 son but that's a whole different disaster post cos I put the 4WD in a ditch pulling into the driveway and, wait, I digress) Or they answer the door and say 'You? You weren't meant to be invited. What are you doing here?' Well, that's more like something that would happen in a B grade teen flick but you get my drift. And remember, I'm the parent. I'm meant to teach her how to be confident and have courage and independence. So I'm faking it.

Anyway, the door opens and there's this, I dunno, 10 year old looking girl dressed in a fairy looking dress who says 'Come in, you can stay, there's coffee and heaps of food and stuff' in a we really don't want you to stay sort of way as she looks at me. So we walk in. Mini me and I simultaneously cacking our fairy pants. Did I mention that The Divine Miss M goes mute with shyness when she enters group situations? Well she does and the only reason I don't is because I understand that people give you even stranger looks if you say nothing at all. So the mother of the birthday girl says hi and introduces herself and offers me a water. (What? No wine?) I realise at this point that all the other mothers have taken just a split second to check me out then gone back to their own conversations. I know no one and The Divine Miss M acts like she knows no one when really she knows a grand total of 1 person there. Lucky her. I'm feeling ridiculously uncomfortable and struggling to encourage her to appear any better. There are at least a dozen squealing little girls, covered in tulle and glitter. I sat on a chair and the woman next to me turned and introduced herself as Michelle then gave me her back. Yep, that's as far as socialising went. That's was about when I realised my nose was sparkling whenever the sunlight caught it. Argh! Freaking glitter!

Then Fairy Abbey arrives.

Yes, there are people, Adults, who dress in tulle and glitter and entertain children for a living. Personally, I would rather be forced to live in a cardboard box under the Westgate Bridge than resort to this as a means of employment in order to avoid it. I'm pretty sure this chick was dropping acid. I mean no one can be that chirpy and prance around in rainbow coloured wings or speak in accentuated syllables like that and be sober. Whatever she was on, I needed some. I was in a world of pain. I was bored to tears. I knew without a doubt, this was going to be 2.5 hours of my life I was never getting back. I was so relieved to hear the mum of the birthday girl say that it was time for cake because cake means an end to your obligations as a guest.

And the second those candles were blown out, mums were grabbing balloons, lolly bags and glitter covered hands and high tailing it out of there. I joined the throng, said my thank yous (for having such clicky friends that wouldn't even be nice to the loner woman and let her play with them. If only.) and headed for my car. I strapped The Divine Miss M in her glitter covered car seat, put my now sparkly keys in the ignition and went home.

When I arrived to my haven I went straight for the fridge only to find silver sparkles on the bottle of pear cider I was planning on using to wash away all memories of glitter and fairies and tulle and squealing little girls and snobby mums who didn't want to play with me.



No comments:

Post a Comment