On occasion I work for a party place that does parties in people homes and it’s always a whole lot of fun. While it does get exhausting sometimes, the kids totally make up for it. I always forget that for me, the party that I’m working is just a job. I’m going though the motions of the party, setting stuff up, cutting the cake, doing menial tasks like that. But for the kids, the party is a lot more. Remember birthday parties when you were younger? Everything was an exciting process. From inviting people and making invitations, to getting a cake, to picking out outfits, a birthday party is a huge celebration of the birthday kid! And the best part is that is happened every year! At least this is how I saw it. However it’s really hard to remember that I’m trying to make someone’s single day of celebration a success when the kids and screaming, and the parents are yelling and the pizza delivery is late. It’s hard to remember that this day isn’t an ordinary day of working, it’s the birthday kid’s best day of the year.

So this party I worked this morning was crazy hectic. To begin the catastrophe we were almost late for the party because it was farther than we had anticipated. The parties usually include a visit from a character (like Elmo, or Dora) and this party the character was Abby Cadabby, a new muppet from Sesame Street. I really don’t mind dressing up in character at all, it’s easy enough to dance, I don’t have to talk, and most kids love it when they get to play with their favorite TV character. The only down side is that older kids ruin the secret and tell everyone that it’s just a person dressed up, and sometimes little babies are terrified when they see the larger than life costume.

One time, after I got out of the Spiderman costume, a little boy came up to me and told me he knew I was Spiderman. I told him that it was a HUGE secret and he couldn’t tell anyone, because if he did I wouldn’t be allowed to fight crime anymore. He looked at me, nodded very solemnly and for the rest of the party, looked at me like I was a hero. It was wonderful that I pulled that off, considering I’m a girl, so I’m pretty proud of that situation.

But the party today was not nearly as easy as that time. The little birthday girl, Tina (she was turning 3, I believe) was so scared of Abby Cadabby! She cried as soon as I walked in the room, and wouldn’t stop. The poor little girl had to be taken from her own birthday party to be calmed down. That wasn’t even the worst part of Abby Cadabby! The costume is very very heavy and very hot inside. It was really hard to see out of because I was too short for my eyes to be where the opening to see was. Then the ceiling of the house was pretty low on the stairs so when I was going into the party room, my Abby head hit the ceiling a few times. When it was time for Abby to leave the party, Tina came back but she immediately started crying again, Tina did not enjoy music at all. Basically the entire party was done with only our (My friend Diana, and my) voices for the soundtrack, which was very awkward.

Finally, to end the exhausting party, while making cotton candy the smoke from the machine set off the smoke detectors. A little known fact about me: I HATE fire alarms. They’re loud and scary and they make my heart jump out of my chest. I was probably more scared than the kids, I stood there with my hands over my ears, shying away from the sound instead of trying to get it to stop. And so the party ended with a bang, or rather with a beep, from the alarm.

There were a few things from this party that stuck with me on the way home, most of them being “I hate when people don’t tip” and “my neck hurts from being Abby”. But most meaningful was a story that one of the little girls at the party had told me. While I was doing her face paint, she told me about her dog, and at first I thought she meant the balloon animal dog she was holding. But no, she was telling me how she can’t find her dog at home, and how she saw him the other day but then today he was missing. I asked if he ran away and she said “No, he’s just gone!” My assumption of the story is that her dog died and she doesn’t understand what happened. It was so sad to me, both the fact that she doesn’t know what’s going on and the fact that she is young enough to still believe that he’s just missing. I’m not sure if I wish I was still as ignorant. She gets the bliss of not knowing what happened, but she also doens’t understand. I’m not sure which I would rather.