the ocean

We had one job for my niece's birthday party: procuring two mylar balloons, one each for my niece and nephew, with characters they like on them. Because we are idiots, we assumed this would be easy. We could not have been more wrong.

Did you know that Party City is absolutely the place to be on Friday nights? I had assumed that people would rather be home drinking boxed wine and eating Pringles (which were the two items the lady in front of me in line at Walgreen's got with her prescriptions, by the way), but apparently shopping for novelty plates and plastic noisemakers is the way to go. And did you know that balloon orders have to be placed with the cashier? So we got in a line that was twenty people deep in a desperate attempt to purchase $6 worth of Mickey Mouse and Spider Man balloons.

But it was not meant to be. For, in fact, they were "a little backed up" and had therefore imposed a forty-five minute waiting period for all balloon orders. (Firearms are still available instantly, no doubt.) We were cocky, friends, and thought we'd just get our balloons elsewhere. A Walgreen's, Jewel, and Mariano's later, however, we were still empty handed. If we'd wanted balloons shaped like mugs of Guiness, we would have been in business, but unfortunately the children cannot yet hold their liquor.

We ended up ordering them online from Party City for "curbside pickup" Saturday morning. Unfortunately, that seems to be a term that means "fuck you, sucker," because we pulled up to the curbside pickup zone at our appointed pickup time and checked in via text, only to wait fruitlessly for twenty minutes with nary a Mickey in sight. So I headed inside.

"Welcome to the party!" one of the cashiers greeted me in that tone reserved solely for corporate-mandated welcomes.

"Yeah, I've already been at the party for twenty minutes, waiting for my curbside delivery," I could not help but reply. And, as usual, being white and sassy got me places. I was out of there with my balloons in a cool three minutes. I carried with me serious concerns about the mental health of the clearly overwhelmed woman working the balloon counter by herself and getting screamed at about partially deflated Anna & Elsas, but at least I was alive.