The only time I remember going to a girl’s birthday party as a kid, was when I was a student at Vista Heights. I can’t remember what year it was, but I’ll never forget the party itself. It was an unforgettable experience to say the least.
One of the girls in my class gave me an invitation card. She was someone in my class I liked a lot and I wanted to go. I remember asking her what she wanted for a birthday present and she told me, “any kind of jewelry.” I got a good laugh at that. I didn’t think I could pull that off, but I promised I would do my best.
I remember my parents giving me a ride to her house. I was sitting in the middle seat in the back of the car. I have no idea where that girl lived, but it seemed like we drove forever to get to her house. It was nowhere near Vista Heights. Nor was it in Meadowvale.
On the ride there I was holding her present in my lap. I didn’t have a VISA card back then so I was at my parent’s mercy for a present. They had gone out and bought her gift and wrapped it before I could even see it. I remember the gift was square, like the shape of a book, but it was bendable.
I knew this girl well enough to know that you could have given her one pink sock in a brown paper bag and she would have hugged you and said she loved it, but I had a crush on her and I wanted her to get something nice. I agonized over what that present was the whole way to her house. I kept holding it up to the light, hoping to figure it out.
I asked my parents to tell me what that present was, but they wouldn’t say. They just told me, “You’ll see when she opens it.”
“Well by then it’s kind of too late isn’t it?”
They didn’t respond and I was getting worried.
“Can we stop by the jewelry store on the way? I know what she wants for her birthday. She told me.”
I’m not sure why my parents laughed at that. I wasn’t kidding.
On the birthday invitation it said that we were encouraged to bring Halloween costumes if we had them. I remember thinking that was very odd. I didn’t even have a Halloween costume, because Halloween was still a month away. I decided to improvise and I brought a cowboy hat and a scary mask that I had left over from my Halloween costume the year before.
When I knocked on the door I was wearing the mask and the cowboy hat. Someone let me in and I could see that most of the people from the party were already there. And much to my surprise….none of them were wearing Halloween costumes!
I remember slowly taking off this mask and this cowboy hat, putting them together, tossing them to my left as I walked in the door, and trying my very best to pretend that embarrassing moment never happened. All I could think at that point was how lucky it was that I wasn’t wearing a full body costume that I had to take off. That would have been completely humiliating.
When the birthday girl saw me, she came and greeted me at the door.
“Come, I want you to meet somebody.”
She took me into her kitchen and a man was standing at the counter cutting something with a knife. He had his back turned to us. She tugged on his pant leg and said, “Daddy, daddy.” As he turned around she said, “Look daddy. It’s my boyfriend M.”
I was maybe 6 or 7? I was thunderstruck!
Don’t get me wrong, I liked this girl a lot. But, I had a brother who was ten and a half years older than me. He was already dating and he told me many horror stories about the fathers of his girlfriends. I imagined them all to be ill tempered nut cases, like my own father. Those stories were very fresh in my mind when the birthday girl introduced me like that. Panic set in.
I remember she had a big smile on her face when she said that. Her dad seemed to be projecting a pleasant appearance for the benefit of his daughter, but I got the feeling he was not altogether pleased to hear that.
“Oh, this is the boy you’ve been telling me about,” he said with a giant knife in his hand.
Telling me about? What? Considering all I ever did in school was get into trouble, I couldn’t imagine what she could have told him that was good. I was scared out of my wits. At that point he leaned over and shook my hand. He was talking all nice, but the look in that man’s eyes and the firmness of his handshake had me convinced I was going to die that day!
From that point on I have only patchy memories of things that happened during the party. I remember the birthday girl opening her presents, but I can’t remember what my present to her was. I remember us lying down on our stomachs together in her living room, she was lying on my right side and we were coloring together in a coloring book. I also remember some guy at the party brought my mask and cowboy hat downstairs and suggested I put it on and hide in the closet to try and scare her. It didn’t scare her at all and she just pulled me out of the closet and asked me not to go in there anymore.
One thing I remember more vividly than anything else was this one birthday game we played. Her dad had taken this sheet of clear plastic and laid it out on the floor in their basement. On that sheet of plastic he had made something of a hopscotch course with chicken’s eggs. On one step there would be an egg on the left, then the next step there would be one the right. Then the egg would be on the left for the next two steps, then on the right for the next two, and it was all mixed up as you went along this course.
The point of this game was that you would get a minute or two to memorize the placement of the eggs, and then they would lead you away to a room, blindfold you, bring you back, and make you walk this course in your socks.
Yeah, this is a fantastic game to play with kids at a birthday party.
I remember standing there staring at this sheet of plastic with all those eggs. On the one hand I was trying to memorize the placement, but on the other hand I was thinking, “Surely to God they’re not really going to make us go through with this.”
Her dad was standing beside me while we stood there memorizing the pattern of eggs. I asked him, “Sir, aren’t you worried you may get egg yolk on your carpet?”
Underneath that sheet of clear plastic, he had wall-to-wall carpeting.
He told me, “Don’t worry son, you won’t get egg yolk on my carpet.”
“Are you sure? These eggs are awfully close to the edge of the plastic. I’m thinking you may get egg yolk on your carpet.”
Again he told me, “Don’t worry son, you won’t get egg yolk on my carpet.”
At this point I was getting kind of testy and I said, “How can you not? If someone steps on an egg, the yolk is going to squirt out and it’s definitely going to get on your carpet.”
He said, “Son. If you get egg yolk on my carpet I can always get a steam cleaner and wash it out. But don’t worry. You won’t get egg yolk on my carpet.”
I couldn’t help but wonder why he kept saying I wouldn’t get egg yolk on his carpet. Did he have faith in my ability to remember the placement of the eggs? Was he planning to blindfold me, kill me, and bury me in the backyard, because his daughter introduced me as her boyfriend? Why did he keep saying that?
I just didn’t want to go through with this. As if I wasn’t self conscious enough being at the birthday party of a girl I liked. Now I was imagining myself stepping in egg yolk. Then I would have to go to the bathroom to take my dripping socks off to wash my feet. Then I would spend the rest of the day walking around her house barefoot. It was a humiliating thought. And that was assuming those were fresh eggs on the ground and not eggs that had been sitting in a cupboard for a few months!
Finally they led us away to this other room. (More like a holding cell) They brought kids out one by one like little lambs to the slaughter. Each time they would bring someone out, the rest of us would put our ears to the door to listen in. We could hear the crunching of egg shells. We could hear kids whimpering. We could hear other kids laughing from the sidelines. It was like standing outside of a torture chamber, you can hear the screams of the person being tortured on the inside, while you wait patiently for your turn to be tortured next. It was a train wreck.
Then they finally bring me out blindfolded. Lucky me, I was one of the last to go, so now all the kids from the party are on the sidelines getting ready to laugh. I remember holding a lady’s arm. You can’t see anything, so you need to hold onto something for balance and direction as you walk along this course.
What you don’t realize though as you walk along this sheet of plastic, is that after they take everyone into the other room, they removed all the chicken’s eggs and replaced them with these little piles of dry granola. So when you step on it, it sounds like the crunching of egg shells, but in reality you can just brush the crumbs off your socks and there’s no harm done. The other thing they had done was, starting at about the forth or fifth step, they had reversed the placement in two or three places. So if you went according to memory, you were guaranteed to step in it, with both feet, at least once.
As I go along, everything is fine for the first few steps. After all, Sir said I wouldn’t get egg yolk on his carpet. I gain a little confidence and start stepping with a little more authority, and then crunch!
I stop, and think, “Hey that’s not supposed to be there!” Then I take another step and crunch! “Hey that’s not supposed to be there either!”
At that point I freeze and think, “Oh, I know what they’ve done. They’ve just reversed the placement for the rest of the course.” So then I step on the spot I think the egg is and crunch! Now I’m thinking, “What did they do? Have they placed eggs on both sides for the rest of the course?”
Meanwhile this lady whose arm I’m holding on to is whispering in my ear, “Oh you’re doing fine, just keep going.”
I start whimpering, “Oh, okay.”
Crunch, crunch…
At this point I’m in full blown panic mode, so I drop this lady’s arm. I run to the end, whip off my blindfold and look at my socks……then I look back at the course. All the kids are laughing. That’s when you realize you’ve been had.
Like I said….It was an unforgettable party.
One of the girls in my class gave me an invitation card. She was someone in my class I liked a lot and I wanted to go. I remember asking her what she wanted for a birthday present and she told me, “any kind of jewelry.” I got a good laugh at that. I didn’t think I could pull that off, but I promised I would do my best.
I remember my parents giving me a ride to her house. I was sitting in the middle seat in the back of the car. I have no idea where that girl lived, but it seemed like we drove forever to get to her house. It was nowhere near Vista Heights. Nor was it in Meadowvale.
On the ride there I was holding her present in my lap. I didn’t have a VISA card back then so I was at my parent’s mercy for a present. They had gone out and bought her gift and wrapped it before I could even see it. I remember the gift was square, like the shape of a book, but it was bendable.
I knew this girl well enough to know that you could have given her one pink sock in a brown paper bag and she would have hugged you and said she loved it, but I had a crush on her and I wanted her to get something nice. I agonized over what that present was the whole way to her house. I kept holding it up to the light, hoping to figure it out.
I asked my parents to tell me what that present was, but they wouldn’t say. They just told me, “You’ll see when she opens it.”
“Well by then it’s kind of too late isn’t it?”
They didn’t respond and I was getting worried.
“Can we stop by the jewelry store on the way? I know what she wants for her birthday. She told me.”
I’m not sure why my parents laughed at that. I wasn’t kidding.
On the birthday invitation it said that we were encouraged to bring Halloween costumes if we had them. I remember thinking that was very odd. I didn’t even have a Halloween costume, because Halloween was still a month away. I decided to improvise and I brought a cowboy hat and a scary mask that I had left over from my Halloween costume the year before.
When I knocked on the door I was wearing the mask and the cowboy hat. Someone let me in and I could see that most of the people from the party were already there. And much to my surprise….none of them were wearing Halloween costumes!
I remember slowly taking off this mask and this cowboy hat, putting them together, tossing them to my left as I walked in the door, and trying my very best to pretend that embarrassing moment never happened. All I could think at that point was how lucky it was that I wasn’t wearing a full body costume that I had to take off. That would have been completely humiliating.
When the birthday girl saw me, she came and greeted me at the door.
“Come, I want you to meet somebody.”
She took me into her kitchen and a man was standing at the counter cutting something with a knife. He had his back turned to us. She tugged on his pant leg and said, “Daddy, daddy.” As he turned around she said, “Look daddy. It’s my boyfriend M.”
I was maybe 6 or 7? I was thunderstruck!
Don’t get me wrong, I liked this girl a lot. But, I had a brother who was ten and a half years older than me. He was already dating and he told me many horror stories about the fathers of his girlfriends. I imagined them all to be ill tempered nut cases, like my own father. Those stories were very fresh in my mind when the birthday girl introduced me like that. Panic set in.
I remember she had a big smile on her face when she said that. Her dad seemed to be projecting a pleasant appearance for the benefit of his daughter, but I got the feeling he was not altogether pleased to hear that.
“Oh, this is the boy you’ve been telling me about,” he said with a giant knife in his hand.
Telling me about? What? Considering all I ever did in school was get into trouble, I couldn’t imagine what she could have told him that was good. I was scared out of my wits. At that point he leaned over and shook my hand. He was talking all nice, but the look in that man’s eyes and the firmness of his handshake had me convinced I was going to die that day!
From that point on I have only patchy memories of things that happened during the party. I remember the birthday girl opening her presents, but I can’t remember what my present to her was. I remember us lying down on our stomachs together in her living room, she was lying on my right side and we were coloring together in a coloring book. I also remember some guy at the party brought my mask and cowboy hat downstairs and suggested I put it on and hide in the closet to try and scare her. It didn’t scare her at all and she just pulled me out of the closet and asked me not to go in there anymore.
One thing I remember more vividly than anything else was this one birthday game we played. Her dad had taken this sheet of clear plastic and laid it out on the floor in their basement. On that sheet of plastic he had made something of a hopscotch course with chicken’s eggs. On one step there would be an egg on the left, then the next step there would be one the right. Then the egg would be on the left for the next two steps, then on the right for the next two, and it was all mixed up as you went along this course.
The point of this game was that you would get a minute or two to memorize the placement of the eggs, and then they would lead you away to a room, blindfold you, bring you back, and make you walk this course in your socks.
Yeah, this is a fantastic game to play with kids at a birthday party.
I remember standing there staring at this sheet of plastic with all those eggs. On the one hand I was trying to memorize the placement, but on the other hand I was thinking, “Surely to God they’re not really going to make us go through with this.”
Her dad was standing beside me while we stood there memorizing the pattern of eggs. I asked him, “Sir, aren’t you worried you may get egg yolk on your carpet?”
Underneath that sheet of clear plastic, he had wall-to-wall carpeting.
He told me, “Don’t worry son, you won’t get egg yolk on my carpet.”
“Are you sure? These eggs are awfully close to the edge of the plastic. I’m thinking you may get egg yolk on your carpet.”
Again he told me, “Don’t worry son, you won’t get egg yolk on my carpet.”
At this point I was getting kind of testy and I said, “How can you not? If someone steps on an egg, the yolk is going to squirt out and it’s definitely going to get on your carpet.”
He said, “Son. If you get egg yolk on my carpet I can always get a steam cleaner and wash it out. But don’t worry. You won’t get egg yolk on my carpet.”
I couldn’t help but wonder why he kept saying I wouldn’t get egg yolk on his carpet. Did he have faith in my ability to remember the placement of the eggs? Was he planning to blindfold me, kill me, and bury me in the backyard, because his daughter introduced me as her boyfriend? Why did he keep saying that?
I just didn’t want to go through with this. As if I wasn’t self conscious enough being at the birthday party of a girl I liked. Now I was imagining myself stepping in egg yolk. Then I would have to go to the bathroom to take my dripping socks off to wash my feet. Then I would spend the rest of the day walking around her house barefoot. It was a humiliating thought. And that was assuming those were fresh eggs on the ground and not eggs that had been sitting in a cupboard for a few months!
Finally they led us away to this other room. (More like a holding cell) They brought kids out one by one like little lambs to the slaughter. Each time they would bring someone out, the rest of us would put our ears to the door to listen in. We could hear the crunching of egg shells. We could hear kids whimpering. We could hear other kids laughing from the sidelines. It was like standing outside of a torture chamber, you can hear the screams of the person being tortured on the inside, while you wait patiently for your turn to be tortured next. It was a train wreck.
Then they finally bring me out blindfolded. Lucky me, I was one of the last to go, so now all the kids from the party are on the sidelines getting ready to laugh. I remember holding a lady’s arm. You can’t see anything, so you need to hold onto something for balance and direction as you walk along this course.
What you don’t realize though as you walk along this sheet of plastic, is that after they take everyone into the other room, they removed all the chicken’s eggs and replaced them with these little piles of dry granola. So when you step on it, it sounds like the crunching of egg shells, but in reality you can just brush the crumbs off your socks and there’s no harm done. The other thing they had done was, starting at about the forth or fifth step, they had reversed the placement in two or three places. So if you went according to memory, you were guaranteed to step in it, with both feet, at least once.
As I go along, everything is fine for the first few steps. After all, Sir said I wouldn’t get egg yolk on his carpet. I gain a little confidence and start stepping with a little more authority, and then crunch!
I stop, and think, “Hey that’s not supposed to be there!” Then I take another step and crunch! “Hey that’s not supposed to be there either!”
At that point I freeze and think, “Oh, I know what they’ve done. They’ve just reversed the placement for the rest of the course.” So then I step on the spot I think the egg is and crunch! Now I’m thinking, “What did they do? Have they placed eggs on both sides for the rest of the course?”
Meanwhile this lady whose arm I’m holding on to is whispering in my ear, “Oh you’re doing fine, just keep going.”
I start whimpering, “Oh, okay.”
Crunch, crunch…
At this point I’m in full blown panic mode, so I drop this lady’s arm. I run to the end, whip off my blindfold and look at my socks……then I look back at the course. All the kids are laughing. That’s when you realize you’ve been had.
Like I said….It was an unforgettable party.
