I believe I may have alluded to this in another blog post, but the worst part of being a parent (and to be clear, that list is quite short) is attending kiddie birthday parties. I just attended one yesterday, and it felt like I needed a saved bank of small talk to break out among these parents. The topics of discussion ranged from the summer camps our kids attended, church, the upcoming school year, etc. Half these parents were so busy have dick-measuring contests with each other, that they were barely watching their kids---which is something I make it my business to do with an eagle-eye.

Not only does the laser-like focus I have on my child and others allow me to always know what the hell my kid is up to, but it also serves as the perfect misdirection away from chatty ass parents. Yes I know that parents either feel supremely confident or woefully inadequate, and talking that shit out among other parents can be therapeutic. However, if I don't respond or participate in that, you should be able to successfully take the hint and carry your ass to another room or area. This is the social contact we have one another. You have two (three tops) topics to introduce to someone and if they aren't nodding their head, asking following-up questions, or bringing up subjects of their own, you abort the mission and find another victim. But I digress.

The way these kiddie obligations begin is via an evite, which lists all the basics: time, location, length of the party, whether or not a gift is required, and my favorite phrase, "You are welcome to drop off and come back". I never want to attend these parties, but I also am doing my best to win the parent-of-the-year award, which means I have to please my son at all times. So I always RSVP for three(me, the wife and the son) and mentally prepare myself for the torture party

Last week, I received a particularly interesting evite. Allow me to share part of what was written:

Come help us celebrate [name redacted] Birthday as she turns the big 0-5! This party will feature 1.5 hours of structured parkour play, followed by pizza and cake. Parkour (if you don't already know) is basically an obstical course just for kids. It is super fun, and non competitive.

Unfortunatly you must be 4 years old to participate- so while we are happy to have siblings come watch, and eat cake!, they can't join in unlesss they are 4. Parents must sign a waiver upon arrival, but you are welcome to drop off and come back if you'd like!

Now, I am not really the type of person to be mean-spirited for the hell of it, and I definitely don't hold it against folks when they commit an error or two in their writing. I catch errors in my current and past blog posts all the time. It happens and when they are found they must be corrected immediately.

However, if I know I am about to send out an invitation to parents of kindergarten-age kids, I think I am going to pull out all the stops to make sure this message is error free. I know for a fact that the parent who sent this invitation out has a husband and other friends, and there is no reason (aside from no one really caring) that this woman could not have said, "Hey can you read this over for me right quick?".

Instead of taking that extra step, she sent out an invite with misspelled words and misplaced punctuation. I was embarrassed for this woman and I don't even know her that well. I wanted to send an email to her to let her know, but my wife shut that down. So what will end up happening is that all the parents will be giving her the silent, judgmental eye at the party. At that point it won't matter because the parents will care more about their church, the camp their kids attended and putting in their bid for the parent-of-the-year award. But I'll be in the corner somewhere watching my kid trying to keep myself from bringing it up...