Entry for 12th December, 2007

My significant Other managed to get us an invite to a three year old's party at a soft play area. I say "us" but she cunningly managed to do it on a day when she was busy, so that I had the pleasure of taking the Two Small Round Faced People (both under the age of two) to the party. It is easier to control Cemtex.
A toddler's birthday party is rather like a fiendish experiment devised by a mad biologist to study Darwinian competion in its distilled, raw state. You feed the little people up on cake, and sugary drinks, and cheesy Wotsits; play loud music to them; and then set them free in a room with lots of other little people. The adults all converse politely with one another, but throughout these conversations everyone is keeping their peripheral vision fixed firmly on their own child, and periodically, in the middle of perfectly civil conversations about house prices or commuting times to Falkirk, a mother will shriek something like "Brigitte - don't bite that little boy's leg. I've told you about that before."
My favourite bit today was the carefully organised pass the parcel game. The first girl to be eliminated, stormed off, and through loud tears sobbed "It's not fair." I thought to myself, life's not fair little Francesca - from here on in, whenever you see something wrapped in gawdy paper beware: rip that paper off at your peril, for it more than likely contains something disappointing. Even when you get to the prize through all the pointless layers, it's more than likely to be something crap.