One of the side benefits of spending a week at Dad’s house is access to the miscellany of my past. For example, the following, found on the back of an index card in the box where Dad keeps his addresses.
It is an invitation to an elementary school birthday party, my elementary school birthday party.
Behold:
I can’t decide whether to preemptively make fun of myself or to let you do the honors. What is more embarrassing? That I seem to have forgotten my own phone number or that, once I wrote it down incorrectly, I was unwilling to start over and simply crossed it out?
If I remember right, this particular party coincided with my darkest adolescent hour, when I was overweight, wore thick plastic glasses, and parted my hair in the middle. I was wretched and insecure (like so many of us were, I suppose), thoroughly unfit to host a proper party.
Let’s just say for the sake of argument, that the exclamation point probably unnecessary.
I’m more thrown by the requirement of a swimsuit in December.
Me too, Brandy, me too. Eh, Matthew?
Love the “What for”. Says a lot.
Clare: Ah, yes. I was “Matt” back then.
As for the swimming suit, we had an outdoor hot tub. It was the one thing that kept me from being a complete social outcast. One of my favorite things to do in the winter was roll around in the snow for as long as I could stand it before plunging back in to the bubbles. That activity was, if I remember, a central focus of the so-called “party.”
Any photos available?