Story 74: Kiddie Party

            “Are you certain you want to do the 1:00 party?  There’ll be 20 toddlers – and their adults.”

            “Sure, boss; I need a challenge away from the register!  It’ll be nice and orderly, don’t you sweat.”

            The store employee set up the tables, chairs, confetti, balloons, and supplies well in advance of the party attendees’ arrivals, which naturally were late and staggered.  The guest of honor arrived with his parents seven minutes after the top of the hour, delaying the start time because they had trouble finding a parking spot.

            “All right, let’s get this party started, `cause we’re already behind schedule!”  The employee tried to get things back on track.  “Here are some toys – go play!”

            There was unstructured play for 13 minutes in an attempt to right the itinerary – wanderers were herded back into the room and over to the general vicinity of their oblivious guardians.  The employee checked her watch, set in alignment with Greenwich Mean Time: it was time for Phase 2.

            “Listen up, everybody – craft!  Put the toys down and come to the tables!”

            “Can my daughter still play with – ”

            “NO!”

            The craft was drawing self-portraits, all of which came out abysmally.  They would be the ones to suffer with the unsightly works hanging on their walls, the employee thought.

            “All right, craft time is over, go back and play!”

            “Can we have another piece of paper?  This one ripped.”

            “Craft time is over!  Time to play, play, play!”  What was with all the insubordination?  Did she have “PUSHOVER” stamped on her forehead?

            Play time lasted for the allotted 10 minutes – next up was pizza and soda.  “Time for your sugar, salt, and fat, children!”  Why weren’t they all sitting in their seats properly?  “Doesn’t anyone want a salad?”

            “Not at a birthday party.”

            Thanks, Mom.  Napkins and tomato sauce everywhere – do they make this mess at their own homes?  She thought maybe.

            “OK, let me take a picture of all of you!”  Only the Birthday Boy and three children came to the marker she had placed on the floor for this.  “Come on, this moment needs to be immortalized!  Why is no one following directions?!”

            “They’re still playing.”

            “But it’s picture time!”  Four subjects were better than none, so she took the photo with the glaring negative space drawing all the attention.  “Thank you – disperse until dessert.”   That would be in 10 minutes, during which time a few adults and children drifted off to different parts of the store: this could not be tolerated.

            The employee went on the overhead speaker: “Attention, party guests: if you do not return to the designated area in… 37 seconds, cake and cookies will be withheld from you, even if you are the guest of honor, good day to you!”

            The pitter-patter of sneakered feet raced over to the party room, and they all sat down at the tables.  Dessert was served in an orderly fashion and peace reigned for exactly one minute and 23 seconds.

            The manager stuck his head into the room: “Is everything all – ”

            “Yes!”

            “OK – don’t go on the overhead again.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            Dessert was ingested and smeared on faces, hands, clothing, and walls.  “Not the walls!  It’ll take me ages to clean them!  Never mind – children!  Get into a circle!”  Six of them got into a diagonal.  “I said ‘a circle’!  We’re going to play ‘Duck, Duck, Goose’!”  They moved to form a rhombus.  “Close enough!  Birthday Boy: go!”

            The Birthday Boy left the room because he had to go potty; Dad followed to assist if needed.

            “All right – someone else!”

            Three of the remaining children stood and each went “Duck, Duck, Duck, Duck…”

            “Forget it!  You ruined it!  Go back to the tables and think about what you did!”

            The manager poked his head in again.

            “What – ”

            “I will have order here!”

            The employee spent the rest of the party back at the cash register, ringing up customers in order to calm herself down.  The children were very confused, the adults were a bit miffed, and the Birthday Boy returned from his break looking for his presents.  Presents make everything all better.

Story 73: The Perfect Excuse

            I had reached the point where I had had it with everything: my job was abysmal; I kept having to go to events I hated; and conversation in general drained my soul out through my ears.  The time had come to create the perfect excuse to get out of everything.  So I invented a baby.

            Faking a pregnancy is easy when you’re single (at least in this modern world) – I would never have gotten away with it if I was living with the imaginary father (I’m just not that devious).  It was a nice attention-booster at work and a great way to get out of doing pretty much anything: the bigger my fake stomach grew, the more I could just put my feet up and nap.  I even got to go home a lot of times with intense back pain, which wasn’t entirely a lie (fake stomachs have real weight, my friends).  Morning sickness let me come in late a lot, too, and Braxton Hicks nicely took care of the rest of the day quite often (got out of some literally painful meetings with that one – false labor’s a life-saver, let me tell you).  The girls were sweet and tried to throw me a baby shower, but I headed them off at the pass on that one by saying “Please don't fuss” and having them just write me one big check (what am I going to do with a crib and sundry baby paraphernalia?).  I did the same with my family, only some of my first-degree relatives insisted on giving me strollers – whatever floats their boat.

            When the “baby” arrived after 9 ½ months of stretching out the term (I refused to take maternity leave before delivery because I’m that much of a trooper), I dropped off the radar for a while to “nest” in Paris, insisting upon on my privacy while simultaneously hinting that the “child’s” “father” quite possibly was some world leader who needed to buy my silence to avoid disastrous scandal.  Labor lasted for five weeks as I toured Western Europe (definitely do not go there in August, nothing’s open).

            I finally returned home and was ready to re-introduce myself to society as a new mother whose baby no one ever saw.  I found an old baby picture of me that I used the wonders of modern technology to make it appear as if it had just been taken the other day.  Ate up many an hour in the office showing that off.

            Social gatherings became a bit of an issue: everyone kept wanting to see their new cousin/niece/granddaughter, so much so I had to inflict an impossible amount of colds upon the poor thing to explain her continual absence.  Thankfully, after a seemly amount of time I could invent a babysitter.  The whole enterprise finally paid off at those interminable gatherings where people just don’t. Stop. Talking.  One simple sentence would save me: “Gotta go – the baby.”  It wasn’t even a proper sentence, but it worked every time.

            “The baby” – what a wonderful phrase.  “I’d love to go to the wake, but, you know, the baby.”  “Can’t stay overtime anymore, boss – the baby.”  “Cousin’s in the hospital again?  Of course I’d visit, if it weren’t for THE BABY.”  “Dance recital?  Yeah, the baby.”  I can milk this for years.

            Don’t know what I’ll do when she’s a teenager, though.  Maybe I’ll decide to have another one by then.

Story 72: Dilation of the Senses

            “I’m going to put the drops in your eyes now,” the ophthalmologist said.  “I’ll be back in a few minutes when they’re fully dilated.”

            The patient leaned back in the exam chair, waiting for the familiar pressure as his corneas would be forced wide open against their will.  Surprisingly, this time he did not feel that, but the room still became suspiciously brighter with each passing minute.

            When the ophthalmologist returned, the patient asked: “Are these new drops?  I think they’re working, but they don’t feel like they normally do.”

            “Why, yes, actually they’re from a – whoa!”  The ophthalmologist saw the patient’s eyes for the first time since re-entering the room.

            “What?”

            “It’s, just, your eyes are really ready for me to look at now,” she said.  His eyes had been green on his arrival for the appointment, but the green had been reduced to a faint memory of itself as it was literally eclipsed by the gaping chasms that were his pupils.  “Don’t look directly into the light.”

            She finished the exam and sent him on his way with: “Make sure you wear sunglasses when you go outside!”

            “Heh, I think I need them in here!”

            THREE DAYS LATER

            “Doctor, a patient’s on the phone with a question – he says his pupils are still dilated from the other day?  Does that sound right?”

            “Oh.  I’ll take it in my office.”  The ophthalmologist closed the door and picked up the line.  “This is the doctor.”

            “Doc, you gotta help me, my eyes are still dilated!”

            “Has there been any change?”

            “None that I can see, and I can see everything now!  People at work think I’m too cool for school `cause I can’t use the computer without sunglasses, and I keep getting pulled over for erratic driving `cause it’s so bright, and the cops think I’m on drugs!”

            “Oh no, you haven’t been arrested, have you?”

            “I have!  They recommended I call you after the second time.”

            “Yes, come right in.”

            He came in an hour later, wearing the type of sunglasses usually given to people who have had cataract surgery.  “I got pulled over again!”

            “Right this way, please.”  She led him to an exam room with the lights turned down low; he took off the sunglasses and pressed his fists against his eyes.  “Let me see.”  He lowered his hands and opened his eyes: there had been no change.  When she shone a soft light at the pupils, she could have sworn that she could see both the outside and the inside of the corneas at the same time.

            She decided to give it to him straight: “After you left the other day, I saw that the drops I had given you were from a sample pack that had been sent to me in error.  Other than the brightness, have you seen anything else unusual?  Colors you never noticed before?”

            “Yes, actually I now see a weird red wherever there’s heat, and a lot of a weird purple in the light.”

            “Mm-hm.  Yes, it seems the drops have given you super-vision, where you now can see all the colors in the spectrum, including infrared and ultraviolet, and who knows what else.  There’s no way to reverse it without killing you, so I contacted the NSA where the package had come from and they’re recruiting you for their research and surveillance divisions.”

            “Wha – ?”

            The door opened and two men in suits and shades entered.

            “Come with us to your new life, sir.”  Each grabbed an arm and hauled him out of the exam chair.

            “But – but – but I’m a paralegal!”  The door shut gently behind them.

            That’s the last time I use something without first reading the package it came in, the ophthalmologist thought as she went to the next exam room for her 1:15.  Lesson learned.