fuck kids’ birthday parties

by Robert Dean

I need you to know something about me: I absolutely, under no circumstances, want to attend your child’s birthday party. If my kids are invited to your child’s scream fest, I’m handing you a present, asking what time I need to return, and I’m out. I don’t wait for the meaningless “if you want to stick around” portion of the conversation. This is a public space; my kids are old enough to scream HELP if needed, and this arcade, bowling alley, or balloon animal dungeon is likely insured up to the gills. If you’re offering me a two-hour, kid-free window on a weekend afternoon, I’m getting my grocery shopping done in peace instead of at verbal gunpoint; I can’t afford to spend time deliberating between which frozen pizza I want to make for dinner. 

It’s not the shrill screams of children everywhere, or the flustered seventeen-year-old who hates his life because he could be doing anything else this Saturday instead of serving ice cream to small monsters on paper plates for minimum wage. No, it’s the other parents. I don’t know if you know this or not, but people really are fucking boring.

I have two boys, ages eight and eleven. They’re good kids. Normal boys who have just enough Lord of the Flies in them that if they needed to kill other clans of children out of survival, they’d both score leadership positions. So, when my ex-wife tells me, “Oh, they have a party this weekend,” I’m resigned to knowing as much as possible because I do not want to hang out. And if I do have to stay because the birthday party is held in a house that smells like cat pee or is dirty as hell, I’m not happy about it. Seriously, don’t hold a kid’s party at home for me to judge you because your rug is ripped up from the baseboards in spots. Go to the park—that shit is free. Fresh air, and we’re none the wiser, as you haven’t cleaned your toilet since Obama was in office. I already have anxiety; the smell of piss only makes it worse.

The Party Itself: A Hellscape

“There’s water in the cooler!” Have you ever come across a cooler full of ice that you wouldn’t even want your worst enemy to grab out of? How does dirty ice even happen? How does this cooler smell? I get times are tough, but couldn’t you have sprung for anything but Dollar Store “Cola Flavored Soda?” Then, the three Domino’s pizzas are never enough, with my kids polite enough to understand this and only taking a single slice. And if there any extra, a bunch of bored adults think, “Hmm, I wouldn’t mind a piece of cheese,” as they watch, mesmerized, the cake emerge from its plastic shell.

The Other Parents: A Study in Banality

The real torture, though, is the other parents. I have a lot of tattoos, and someone always wants to show me theirs and ask me about mine. They’ll tell me some story I don’t care about, like how they love “ink therapy.” Lady, the fact you said that can only make me think less of you. Anyone who says “ink therapy” automatically sucks in my mind, no matter the context.

Then, you’ll meet the guy who can only talk sports: the shit their kids are involved in—cheer, basketball, soccer, baseball, football, primeval dance methodology—or that they’re a super fan and have no personality beyond liking the Kansas City Chiefs, whom they love because they’re not from here; they moved for a job.

You’ll also get the parent who doesn’t know how to have opinions. All they can yap about are their kid’s minor scholastic achievements or that their offspring is the lynchpin holding together their fragile existence. Once, there was a guy who was an overzealous school volunteer who got weird when my ex told him she’d lived in this neighborhood longer. Like a gauntlet had been thrown and his self-appointed right to be Powerful Neighborhood Dad was suddenly put at risk. Is ‘hierarchy’ an innate feature of culs-de-sac? Do we battle over who gets the last pair of Old Navy cargo shorts?

Nay. Your kingdom is safe, sir.

Please God, Take Me Now

If forced to endure banality, I’ll find ways to spice up a conversation: make a casual Jeffrey Dahmer skull bowl reference when talking about dinner or wonder aloud what would happen if a kid lodged a Lego up his nose and required invasive surgery. I’ve tried to sell fellow parents on the artistic value of the final scene of Boogie Nights, where we get to see Marky Mark’s junk.

Please don’t invite me to your kid’s birthday party. Just let me play chauffer. It’ll be better for everyone. I made my communal deposit to your child’s war chest: I’ve done my time. Don’t make me talk to the guy in the Nintendo graphic tee and Sketchers. I don’t care about what’s happening in the Spider-Verse. But, if you force me to stay, don’t act surprised when the conversation steers toward sump pumps and John Wayne Gacy.