Miss Information is annoyed at a party
Miss Information was reading about how penguins are so eager to reproduce that they will nurture things that sort of remind them of eggs--egg-shaped pieces of ice, for example. She has never understood the whole procreation imperative. There are already enough people in the world she can’t stand, why should she run the risk of creating another one?In any case, her sister has kindly provided her with two nieces to corrupt, so that requirement is satisfied anyway. (At this time, the children are still refusing to sing along with “Sheena is a Punk Rocker”. This makes Miss Information very sad but she figures she’ll wear them down in a couple of years.) Tonight she was drafted to take the elder niece to a birthday party. No problem. It’s fun to help out! The party schedule pretty much trashed her usual Thursday plans of aerobics and yoga, but hey, in wartime everyone has to do their part. And how hard is it to drop a kid off at a party place?
Here was Miss Information’s plan: take the child at the appointed time to the appointed address. Then, because she’s really trying to be more social, she would explain her sister’s absence to the greeter/doorperson/parent, leaving her cell phone number and detailed instructions about what to do if her niece had an allergic reaction to cake or set fire to something and then take off for the nearest coffee place. But see, Miss Information was unaware of a whole bunch of things. One thing is that these party play place dealies are just basic unrelenting chaos—so no doorman. Another thing she forgot is that all those other parents/caregivers already know each other from school, scouts and target shooting classes. And they aren’t that interested in making acquaintance with someone new—especially someone like Miss Information who doesn’t know the secret mom handshake. All the moms at the party just kind of ignored her. Finally she honed in on a woman who appeared to be in charge and waited while the woman chatted about some softball tournament with some other mom and walked away. It was like Miss Information was invisible. She felt like standing in the middle of the floor and announcing she was a pedophile. She was suddenly sorry she had changed out of her skull t-shirt into something more middle class parenty. Eventually she cornered the woman and introduced herself but since the woman still didn’t acknowledge her she didn’t give out that cell phone number. Maybe the women at the party can’t cope with someone who doesn’t have the vacant, stressed-out stare of the mother of a 5 year old.
Anyway the kid was successfully dropped off. Miss Information had coffee. Eventually she picked the kid up and took her home again. When Miss Information got home she discovered that her garbage can had been stolen. It was just one of those days.
3 Comments:
Dear Miss Information,
How many blogs are there?? In the tens of thousands, I would guess. Of that number, yours is the only one I have bookmarked.
Though it has nothing to do with your current entry (Or any other entry), I would like to share the way that my library experience has been enriched by illegal aliens.
You see, my local library has a policy that a patron who accrues five dollars or more in fines cannot check out materials until he or she pays the fine. Or at least enough of it to bring the amount owed under five dollars. Mostly through my own carelessness, I managed to run up eleven dollars in overdue charges. As you might imagine, I was sorely depressed at the thought of not being able to take Ann Coulter’s `GodLess' home and peruse it at leisure.
Enter the illegal aliens. They marched en masse to the library and shouted (In Spanish), “Racism!! Bigotry!! You’re singling us out because you know we don’t have money to pay your silly fines.”
So now I can check out whatever I want. The library employee who checks out my `Girls Gone Wild' video and my graphic novels always calls the eleven dollars to my attention. So I’m looking forward to reading `GodLess' when my turn comes. (There are some sixty holds ahead of me.)
Eh- I'm a mom of two - and I get the same treatment you got all the time. I feel like I'm back in high school all over again. Great blog BTW. I miss my librarian days (former librarian- left to have my kids etc etc etc).
I've often discovered that, in these situations, us women-without-children are often regarded as women-who-could-be-sleeping-with-my-good-for-nothing-SOB-husband.
Hence, we become invisible for the sake of their sanity.
So the next time you are shunned by a group of self-important mommies who insist that you don't exist, saunter right up to the leader of the pack and steadfastly inform her, "Maybe I am sleeping with your husband."
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