The Day of the Doll

I have experienced a new phenomenon, new at least to me, of which I have heard tall tales passed down from my parents of the horrors entailed.

Yes, I speak of the 5-year old birthday party.

The long-awaited day (and by long-awaited, I mean for the last 5 months) had finally arrived, and the birthday girl, resplendent in her pink outfit, eagerly awaited the arrival of her guests. Her mother had just left to pick up the balloons and pizza, promising to be back “by 11:30 at the latest” for the 12 o’clock fiesta. Her father (that would be me) was at the dining room table, frantically trying to finish decorating 17 heart-shaped cupcakes, complete with ribboned edging and individualized with the names of the guests (because, after all, doing individual cupcakes would be so much easier than doing one big cake). Her brother was busy spreading out all the toys we had spent the previous day picking up.

I look at the clock. 11:45. 13 cupcakes done. No sign of the pizzas, and more importantly, mom.

Again. 11:50. 15 cupcakes done. Still no mom.

And again. 11:57. The last cupcake is being finished. At this point, I’d skip the pizzas and feed them dried pasta if only mom would show up.

High noon. Cue the western music, the tumbleweed blowing across the front lawn. As I, in my icing-stained sweatpants and torn T-shirt rapidly clear the mess I’ve made on the dining room table, a car pulls up. Thank God! My wife (oh yes, and the pizzas) have arrived! I’m saved.

There’s a knock on the door. On my way to open it, I’m bothered by the thought that my wife, in all likelihood, would not knock at the door to her own house. With trepidation, I slowly swing it open. Our first guests have arrived.

It’s exactly noon, just like it says on the invitation. Don’t these people have any sense of propriety? Don’t they know that a 12:00 invitation means we won’t be ready until 12:15 at the earliest? Don’t they know that, without my wife at home, I am totally incapable of entertaining four 5-year old children and their parents?

And how do you manage to show up at exactly the correct time, anyway? Did they wait around the corner, watching the clock, timing the traffic, until, bang! Foot hits the pedal, car zips around the corner, and the car comes a halt as the clock strikes.

I mumble a welcome, take their coats, and retreat to the upstairs.

Returning downstairs, I am just in time to greet our next guests. Body count: one frantic father, one delighted birthday girl, 5 guests, 2 parents. No mom. I make another retrograde advance to the upstairs with more coats.

Twelve-ten comes. Mom (and pizzas) arrive. All is well with the world once again. I retreat to the kitchen.

The party itself went fairly smoothly, with the only hitch coming at 12:50 when my wife and I look at each other and use our telepathic abilities to read each other’s minds. And our thoughts are the same. “The party goes to 2, and we’ve run out of activities!”

Fortunately, 5-year olds are easily entertained. They spent the next hour playing with the presents received by the birthday girl.

Something needs to be said at this point about presents. Girl presents in particular. Specifically, dolls. How many does one kid need? She got “Betty Spaghetti”, “Polly Pockets”, the ever-present Barbie and accessories (don’t get me started on accessories), Madeline, and a Beauty and the Beast castle that involves the smallest dolls known to mankind. Electron microscopes have been used to paint detailed faces on a piece of plastic no larger than a cockroach’s spleen, then wired into a plastic casing, double wired, then taped. The plastic casing has more plastic casing fused onto it, requiring an Exacto^tm knife to open (if you ever need to give a gift to the parent of a young child, give an Exacto^tm knife. They’ll give you weird looks at first, but thank you profusely when the next birthday comes around). This whole contraption is wired into a box, which is then sealed in even more environmentally-destructive plastic as a deterrent to theft.

And each unwrapped gift results in more and more accessories. Shoes, necklaces, bracelets, dresses, hair things, stickers, and even roller skates are all apparently necessary to play with dolls in the right way. Never mind the fact that I have a perfectly necessary 150-piece bit set for a drill I have yet to purchase; why does my daughter need a roller-skating doll?

But she’s happy, and that’s almost what counts. I say almost, because the source of Sarah’s happiness is the scourge of my wife’s life. Chris and I are now finding doll pieces everywhere we go. In the middle of the night, it is not unusual to hear the toilet flush, followed by an “Ow! #$%^$$#!” on the way back to bed.

My wife thinks we need a machine like a metal detector, only it finds plastic. Just sweep it around the house, and it’ll make a noise when it finds a piece.

I say we already have one. (Or had one.) It’s called a vacuum. Just sweep it around the house. When you’ve heard the “Ccrrrkk. Gsshhh. Wrkkwk.” sound come from the vacuum cleaner, you’ve found a piece of plastic.