In Other Words

Birthdays and tact

Time to do some more online mumbling. First off Richer Hooker has started a blog www.drkananga.blogspot.com here at Blogspot. You should definitely read it as it holds great wisdom. Of course that’s according to you and we might not all agree. That’s what being human is all about, right? Disagreeing (I originally thought it was al about great sex, but after reading many great philosophers I’ve changed my mind, they must be right, right? After all, they lived hundreds of years ago, just like Mohammed, Charlie Chaplin and Jesus).

As you can probably guess I don’t have terribly much to write about. Went to a luncheon at McDonalds yesterday in order to celebrate my girlfriend’s niece’s birthday. About ten kids and 30 adults drifting around (extended family). Heidi (the niece) was dressed up as a little blue fairy with glitters and all that. She tried to run around and have fun, but unfortunately she was too busy being asked to pose for pictures. Her mother alone shot more than a hundred pictures of which the majority were of the little birthday girl. Add in that the rest of the family also wanted a picture and I imagine she had about 150 picks snapped of her. (Lets imagine that every picture takes about seven seconds to snap. That means she had to pose for about 1050 seconds which comes to a grand total of 17.5 minutes. Which means she spent approximately 1/6th of the time there posing, did I mention she’s a full four years?).

So, after yesterday I’ve come to conclusion that at the young tender age of four birthday parties aren’t for the children, but for the parents. They could be for the children, but they aren’t for the simple reason that the parents are far too busy storing away memories so that they can later share the pictures with those children at a later age and other unsuspecting family members. Then, of course, they will have to tell everybody what a brilliant time they had and others will have to nod wisely and agree, what ever their true sentiments might be.

Tact, they call that. Of course the line between tact and lying has always been a little blurry. Not that I didn’t have any fun, it was most certainly amusing. As for the question whether Heidi had any fun, it doesn’t really matter anyway, as at the age of four proper memories aren’t stored away yet anyway.

posted by Symbol @ 4.7.04