As the song goes “My girl likes to party all the time, party all the time, party all the tiiime!” You know, I think we’re all a little like this. We love to celebrate, but it changes as we get older. When we’re a baby we sit in the middle of the room and everyone parties around us. Not so much fun but you get first-hand knowledge about how fast various people in the family get drunk, and it is socially acceptable, even encouraged for you to snuggle closely into cousin’s Hilda’s huge breasts. To this day I have fantasies about Hilda. However, this is wrong on so many levels I’m sorry I mentioned it. Please don’t send me your therapy bills from trying to get this image out of your head.

Right about now you’re probably asking yourself, “Why the HECK is he telling us all this?” Well, just hang on a minute and all things will be made clear. Oh, by the way, please watch your language. Children read this post. Are we good?? Great, let’s move on.

When you’re a kid, parties take on a double kind of double vision. Adults move to the side, sit on their buts an laugh at jokes children aren’t allowed to hear. Children run around in a group and stuff their faces with candy until a pony or magician show up. This attempt at entertainment fails miserably, the entertainer gets paid and showers the place with cards like confetti. They leave and things go on until the kids get bored approximately ten minutes later.

The only people who cross the party divide are the tweeners who hate hanging with the so-called babies and the one strange uncle who arrives in plaid shorts and spends the day chasing the kids around. Why does he do this? No one knows, but every family has one.

Then you become a teenager and a great thing happens. You are no longer required to party with your parents. You are on your own, a party pioneer, finally able to learn the jokes which have been kept from you your whole life. And you learn the horrible truth: Adult jokes aren’t funny unless they’re told five thousand times and you can poke fun at the teller, or the recipient is plied with beer. The odd thing is no one gets rid of a bad joke. They just try to improve them. Your teen party is likely telling the same jokes that got Anne Bolin beheaded. Sadly, though often plied with beer, Henry had no sense of humor. More history explained by Mr. Ohh! at no additional cost. My site becomes a better value all the time. But enough about me and back to the party.

College students and twenty somethings are the best partiers because they have no apparent responsibilities. They can go wild, whereas older people think about things like jobs, children, wives, mistresses, and wondering if the landscaper overcharged them for spray-painting their lawn green. I’m at this is age. I still love to whoop it up but I know the dog will get mad at me if I stay out too long. This can be very bad, and smelly. Though not to brag I have been to a great many parties. I used to attend a yearly celebration of the discovery of a monkey-face on Mars. I mean June alone has national Fudge Day, Donut Day and Go Barefoot Day. If those aren’t reasons to celebrate, I don’t know what a party is. Of course, for the hardliners there is June tenth, Ball-Point-Pen Day. Yes, a day to go out, drink a few, and relish in the fact that there’s a way for your friend to sign the check.

I’m telling you all this because two weeks ago I was invited to a new kind of party. It was a chef party and I knew I would be asked to make a purchase. No big deal, I’ve been to these before. In fact, the food is usually great. I was a little dismayed because usually my wife gets these invites and then brings me along.

If you’ve never been to one of these let me tell you about them. You go to your friend’s house and are greeted. You get something to drink and proceed to tell the required bad jokes. Then everyone sits down and is introduced to Martha. Martha has a smile that takes up three-quarters of her face, and has at least fifty extra gleaming white teeth. I don’t know how she got them in there, but there they are. She plays a series of stupid games and then brings out order-forms so that we can buy overpriced kitchen gadgets. If there’s one thing I look for in utensils, it’s that it needs to be four times the price that I can get it elsewhere.

 Then your friend stands up and tells you all the stuff she can get if you spend more money. So much more incentive to max out that old credit card. As stupid as this seems, we always break the bank and wait two months to get the stuff, which by that time, we likely forgot we bought it, and probably picked it up someplace else for half price. That’s what’s supposed to happen.

I was so bored from quarantine that I accepted the invite. I didn’t get a date and time to come over. I got a Facebook webpage to go to. When I signed in, it was labeled Emily’s Virtual Chef’s Party. Virtual party? No greeting, no drinks, no bad jokes, but I was able to eat anything I wanted from my refrigerator. Supposedly the smiling lady with all the teeth set this up, and was going to post the games. If we played, we could win virtual tickets, to a mysterious drawing, and win an expensive prize which only exists on the ethernet.

We were allowed to spend real money though. And not just for one evening. This so-called party was going to last a week. Excuse me? I have been to a Polish wedding. That’s a week long party. Not some virtual thing where you have to pay for your own alcohol.

Well I logged in and interspersed between ads for expensive kitchen stuff I could buy, were games. Extremely inane games. Face it how exciting can they be if they’re just quick snapshots on Facebook. All the time Smiling Martha was telling us how much fun we’re having. Now I know how she got the fifty extra teeth in her head. They removed part of her brain.

Well, the week ended and I made a purchase. Then the Coup-de-gras came. Martha said if I had a virtual party, I could win a free butter dish. What?? Like I’m going to subject my friends to this? Of course, it was a cute butter dish. My wife said it would go with the dining room perfectly. The answer was NO, a Big NO, well a reasonably large NO, well…

The moral of this story is simple; Virtual parties are kind of stupid, but if you need a kitchen gadget, don’t go to a stranger.

Remember, it’s only for a limited time.