…then there was a big ole dog fight in the middle of it all!

I am always nervous to have parents of Amber’s friends at our house.  We live way out in the boonies and many of our neighbors believe that they live all by themselves in their own little paradise.  This tends to cause problems for those of us that would like to make a friend or two or maybe just not have people believe that their child would be eaten when they come for a visit.

We planned Amber’s birthday party early this year, because we wanted her friends to be able to come and not have them leave burnt to a crisp.  Amber’s actual birthday is in June, otherwise know as the time when New Orleans is closer to the sun than Mars.  I would rather eat my own foot than be forced to spend any length of time outside in the middle of HellFire summer.  So, we had it before school ended hoping that the parents would be desperate enough for something to break up their day they would grace us with the presence of their children.  I have been to many of Amber’s classmate parties where practically her whole class shows up and then to ours where maybe one kid would show up.  Amber seems fine with it, but I, on the other hand, am crush and cry for days after.

Kid parties are one of those things that look like they are going to fun to plan,  until you have done it so many times that you resort to asking the birthday girl if she wouldn’t mind a large lump of cash, instead.  When she ask, what is a large lump of cash, you start to think of ways to skip town for a couple of weeks.  I don’t do the locations parties.  Been there, done that. They are really no easier than something I can throw together at the house.  They all have headaches, but what doesn’t when it involves kids?   They are at our house with our inflatables (Oh yeah, redneck style all the way) of fun and try not to break the bank.  Most of the time, I do my very best to keep things looking nice.  Not too fancy, but not like we just fell out of the back of a 1950’s Ford pickup, either.  

Things were going well, if you don’t consider that George and I started the set up at 8am, Sam had a bout of diarrhea in the brand new, newly filled pool (almost a 1000 gallons of water that had to be let out and refilled), I almost forgot the cake and the party store, where I had to pick up the balloons, was about to burst into a gang fight because several people didn’t see their balloons that they had ordered.  The kids played, mostly in the pool which was a little on the frigid side, the adults chit chatted, our neighbors and good friends made jokes at our expense and I wasn’t yelling at my husband.  Good times and success on the horizon.  When things started to get a little on the bored side, I started the games.  You gotta love kids.  They all patiently waited to throw wet sponges into a bucket and they practically knocked each other over to knock a pineapple down with a baseball.  They didn’t even turn their noses up at my party store prizes (scratch coloring books, small water games and water guns).  Later, we would recreate the beating of Mussolini’s body in the Italian town square when the Spongebob pinata refused to release his goodies.  The kids were nice and orderly to pull their chosen string to open the trap door, but when all the strings were pulled and there was no candy, they lost it.  Spongebob was going to give up the candy or he was going to be torn limb by limb until he was sufficiently tortured and had no choice but to release the goodness he hide inside.  I just wanted the banana Laffy Taffy I had put in a couple of days before, but if you don’t stand and fight you lose out on the Laffy Taffy.  After Spongebob resembled some weird yellow road kill the kids ran off to play again.  And then we heard the screams.

I ran to the swingset area, which was out of the view of the adults in the breezeway, expecting to hear accusations of teasing or unfair possession of a swing.  Oh if life was just that easy out here in the wilds of rural Jefferson Parish.  Throughout the party we were visited by the friendly black Lab from across the street.  This dog runs from house to house begging to have his ball thrown for him.  Most times we throw his spit filled ball a few times and then send him on his way.  That day, he had hit Lab heaven.  There were 10 kids just fighting to play, pet and give him all the attention he could ever want.  Apparently, the Pitbull next door had grown increasingly jealous watching all this from his kennel and made his escape.  When I rounded the corner of the house there was Buster (Pitbull) on top of Pluto (Black Lab) trying to go for his throat.  Armed with only a beach towel, George went in and broke up the dogfight that was not the planned entertainment.  The kids ran to Pluto’s side, while I tried to usher them to the breezeway where we wouldn’t have to get up from our seats to watch our kids be eaten.  After we assessed that Pluto wasn’t bleeding or hurt in any other way than if he wore pants he would have shit them, the party kinda broke up.  I apologized to everyone and slowly to died from the horror of the situation.  George went over to talk to the neighbor, who finally, FINALLY, said that maybe he should find another home for Buster.  You know one where he is not gone for months on end leaving his mother to take care of a dog she never really wanted. 

 I guess you can say the party wasn’t dull, but I have to wonder if anyone would come back.