Party Pooper

We need to send out a national memo regarding baby showers and certain games that should never, EVER be played at them. About two years ago I attended a shower where I was coerced into playing a game where various candy bars were melted into diapers and we had to pass them around and smell them to see if we could guess which candy bar was in which diaper. Have you ever had to play this game??? It completely cured me of any chocolate cravings for like…ten minutes. Not long after that I was chosen to compete with one other guest to suck juice out of a bottle to see who could suck out the most in the allotted time. I won. I don’t remember what prize I took home that was supposed to dispel my humiliation from bottle sucking and diaper smelling – whatever it was, it was not enough.

I doubled my cell phone bill that month because I had to call my friend Ganelle after that shower was over and rant about the world gone wrong and how I, as a grown woman, felt above these ridiculous games. [I should point out my hypocrisy – a year later after my rant to Ganelle I made people play the candy bar game at HER baby shower. However, this was only because her third shower was part of a practical joke. We do that a lot.] Part of my problem is that I tend to be loud in a crowd among friends and have a healthy sense of humor. This makes people think that if there is degradation and ridiculousness involved, sign Kristy up! Most of the time, they would be right. Want me to dance to MC Hammer's "Can't touch this" in a Georgetown bar where I'm the only one NOT drinking? Been there. Care to stick me in a prom dress from Goodwill and take pictures at Wal-Mart? Done that. But ask me to sit in a circle with a bunch of women sniffing Reese's mashed in Pampers? That's where I draw the line.

So today I was attending a lovely gathering of many people I love and adore for a very sweet young woman I used to teach in our church youth program. Things were going very nicely. One of the first activities (one you have surely participated in if you have ever attended a baby shower) involved wrapping a strand of string around the swollen waist of the mother-to-be. Then we had to cut off an amount of string that we felt would come closest to the “real” one. Innocent enough. I had no complaints although I did pose one question: “Do we get extra credit if OUR waist measures the same as HERS?” I got a few laughs but no extra points, which was unfortunate because out of sheer curiosity I DID measure mine against hers and we were the same. In case you have not connected the dots, let me clarify: MY WAIST IS THE SAME AS A WOMAN WHO IS EIGHT WEEKS AWAY FROM GIVING BIRTH. Let me at least say that she is very tall and thin and hardly looks seven months along. Really. No, REALLY.

ANYWAY, the games finally took a turn for the worse when our delightful hostess revealed several baby bottles filled to the brim and said, “Okay, who wants to do the bottle sucking game?” An evil group across the room all pointed to me and said, “HER! KRISTY! She’ll do it!” The hostess turned toward me with her hand outstretched as if eager to meet a willing participant.

“HEY! HEY! HEY! You evil people over there, none of that!” I retorted. In order to stay true to the vow I had made to myself two years prior, I declined. I’m hoping that the hostess didn’t take it personally. Some other lucky contender gulped down the water and won the prize while I ate my cake and went home. Until next time, all is well!