admin
22 December 2023
Summer is here. Time for kids playing, birds singing, the sweltering sun, sticky thighs, and wishing you were dead.
Yes, summertime sucks a big one. Not only do you have to deal with heat that makes your upper lip feel like the Land O\'Lakes chick set up shop there, but you have to deal with assholes that enjoy this ungodly time. The height of this sadistic season is the 4th of July.
Wearing red, white, and blue: yawn. Decorating your yard with flags: yawn. The suburban block party: yawn. Parades: for douche bags (and yawn). But wait, let\'s go back to that block party crap, because this might be the one way you can salvage your summer.
Usually some goody-two-shoes twit with 2.4 kids is the one who plans these hellacious events. However, if you become that twit, then it\'s possible to milk the party for all it\'s worth. Being an \"attendee\" is a glorified term for an \"employee\"-- you get assigned some banal task or have to spend $50 feeding neighbors you don\'t even know. Being the host is where it\'s at: bossing people around means you\'re too busy to do anything useful or drop any of your own dough. So here are six tips that are sure to make your block party awesome (or at least tolerable):
1. Have the couple in the big house at the end of the block bring the beer. They don\'t have kids and therefore have money, so they\'ll bring booze that\'s above par; most likely a dark grog from the local microbrewery, and some cider for the ladies.
2. Ask the newest mother to bring some sort of finger foods. She\'s still trying to prove herself to the veteran moms on the block, so she\'ll go all out. It\'s guaranteed that she\'ll make trays of some appetizer that\'s sophisticated and French, probably called something like \"jub-jois\", which translates to \"individually-crafted, horseradish-encrusted, imported gorgonzola balls filled with candied foie gras nuggets, and drizzled with cucumber lime coulis\". The best part will be that her six trays of $0.98-apiece balls will sit untouched, while the $0.98 bag of generic cheese puffs will run out within an hour.
3. The meat can be handled by the household with the most kids. Confidently mention to the mother that you have the hamburgers covered. Then ask off-handedly if she thinks four pounds of ground beef will be enough for the whole block. She\'ll say she might be able to bring some extra, but will then show up with enough preformed Sam\'s Club patties to feed an army.
4. Tell the house of single twenty-something bachelors to bring the disposable plates and silverware. Asking them to bring anything else might cause their heads to explode.
5. Only assign desserts to grandmothers who are 65 and up. A 45-year-old, health-conscious woman will not cut it! She\'d try to pass off some sort of fat-free lemon sorbet as a treat. Grandmas aren\'t afraid of fat or calories, and won\'t mess around with any fruity desserts. They\'ve been baking for longer than you\'ve been alive, and they do it well because their children have started ignoring them, and baking is all they have left.
6. Tell the parents who are about to be divorced to scrounge up a handful of sparklers. Then, pull the husband aside and tell him his six-year-old told you how much he loves fireworks, but his mommy won\'t let him have any. That pathetic bastard will be so desperate to win his kid\'s affection that he\'ll spend four figures on pyrotechnics. The only thing better than that show will be hearing the missus tear him a new one once they get home that night.
1. Have the couple in the big house at the end of the block bring the beer. They don\'t have kids and therefore have money, so they\'ll bring booze that\'s above par; most likely a dark grog from the local microbrewery, and some cider for the ladies.
2. Ask the newest mother to bring some sort of finger foods. She\'s still trying to prove herself to the veteran moms on the block, so she\'ll go all out. It\'s guaranteed that she\'ll make trays of some appetizer that\'s sophisticated and French, probably called something like \"jub-jois\", which translates to \"individually-crafted, horseradish-encrusted, imported gorgonzola balls filled with candied foie gras nuggets, and drizzled with cucumber lime coulis\". The best part will be that her six trays of $0.98-apiece balls will sit untouched, while the $0.98 bag of generic cheese puffs will run out within an hour.
3. The meat can be handled by the household with the most kids. Confidently mention to the mother that you have the hamburgers covered. Then ask off-handedly if she thinks four pounds of ground beef will be enough for the whole block. She\'ll say she might be able to bring some extra, but will then show up with enough preformed Sam\'s Club patties to feed an army.
4. Tell the house of single twenty-something bachelors to bring the disposable plates and silverware. Asking them to bring anything else might cause their heads to explode.
5. Only assign desserts to grandmothers who are 65 and up. A 45-year-old, health-conscious woman will not cut it! She\'d try to pass off some sort of fat-free lemon sorbet as a treat. Grandmas aren\'t afraid of fat or calories, and won\'t mess around with any fruity desserts. They\'ve been baking for longer than you\'ve been alive, and they do it well because their children have started ignoring them, and baking is all they have left.
6. Tell the parents who are about to be divorced to scrounge up a handful of sparklers. Then, pull the husband aside and tell him his six-year-old told you how much he loves fireworks, but his mommy won\'t let him have any. That pathetic bastard will be so desperate to win his kid\'s affection that he\'ll spend four figures on pyrotechnics. The only thing better than that show will be hearing the missus tear him a new one once they get home that night.
artid
3181
Old Image
7_11_fphatty.jpg
issue
vol 7 - issue 11 (jul 2005)
section
stories