Um, hello?

The label for this says "birthday parties." That's not really true. Every once in a blue moon I do a party that's not a birthday. For example, we have Halloween-themed parties that are often used as birthdays in October. Sometimes they're just Halloween costume parties. It's fun to see all the kids in their costumes----you can always count on a few Transformers, a Spider-Man, a Batman, a ninja, and one or six of the Disney Princesses.

Today was Halloween! I had a party at 4:45, which struck me as a little odd (and not just because when I booked it, I was told by my boss it was at 1:45). Weren't these kids trick-or-treating? Or did they hire me as a substitute now that their whitebread upper-middle-class neighborhood was full of pedophiles and killers who want to give their kids apples with razorblades? As it turned out, I was not a substitute. I was a time-filler. I was the appetizer before the meal. I was the sideshow before the circus.

Were the kids rowdy? Yeah. I was also told there would be 15 kids. There were 20. Yay! Fuck you. They were rowdy, and there were a bunch of older kids (12+) who were mouthy, who set a bad example, and who goofed around in a mocking way----which doesn't get the younger kids in an excited-for-science mood. All in all, the party went OKAY. Not that badly, but not something to write home about. The kids didn't care! Of course not! All they cared about was going out and getting candy afterward.

Apparently, that was all ANYONE cared about, because the second my party was over, everyone left. Twenty kids and all the parents, including the host mother. They all left. LEFT. They closed me in the basement and left. They went trick-or-treating. I cleaned up alone, thinking it was awful weird to not get a follow-up from anybody. Half an hour later I went upstairs and opened the basement door. The host dad was enjoying some wine with his friend and was freaked out that SOMEONE was in his home.

He forgot I was here, too! Fortunately their invoice was paid, and Dad and Dad's Friend helped me take my stuff back to the car. Dad also tipped me in a check because Mom left for trick-or-treating without tipping me in the cash that he'd apparently given her. The fact that I walked out with a tip stunned me. I hate Halloween parties. I then went to a grown-up Halloween party, directly after. My costume was an Overworked & Underpaid Professor.