In reliving my childhood vicariously through my son, I made a pact with my 11-year-old self (currently at the controls) that if I didn’t teach him how to fish, play ball, fix a flat, or bluff on a pair of deuces, I would at least throw him the most awesome birthday parties ever. And I do. Or, I used to.
I am currently banned. Here is why:
Eleven-year-old boys are not sane. Witness the last sleepover birthday party I will ever throw (according to the cease-and-desist order). Mistakes were made.
Mistake number one: Tell your son to invite his friends. It sounds so simple. As long as you’ve known him, he’s only had three: James, whom you’re fairly certain lives with you; the kid with a birthmark shaped like Italy; and the one who only eats mac and cheese. This is who you know as his friends. Your son, however, thinks EVERYONE is his friend. Day of the party, 25 kids marched into my tiny house and began farting.
Mistake number two: Leave the room for 10 seconds. I should have known. The basement was stacked to the eaves with hyperactive, unreasonable nutjobs who imagine ridiculous uses for everyday junk that would make MacGyver call 911. I should have known leaving them in the basement while I stepped out for just a second was idiotic. Not just because you can’t take your eyes off a kid or he’ll set you on fire, not just that, no; but because I am a man, and there is no such thing as “just a second” during Shark Week.
By the time I wrenched my gaze away from the TV and remembered there was a basement full of boys, it was too late. Knowing me, you’re expecting they’d set the chainsaws on fire, filled the washing machine with my rare vintage jazz record collection, and dressed the dog in women’s clothes.
While all of that is true, it pales in comparison to the spectre of arriving to find them mid-toga party in my 300-count cotton sheets dancing to “He’s Going The Distance,” and eating pizza they’ve modified to include Doritos and gummi bears.
Mistake number three: Silly String. There are three classic themes for boys’ toys:
• Things you burn
• Things that fly
• Things that shoot
Silly String does all three. I sent the boys into the front yard, following them with a CRATE of Silly String.
What could go wrong?
I passed out the cans, yelled “Go,” and watched 25 11-year-olds chase each other around my yard shooting colored streams of foam into everything in sight: my shrubs, the cars, the sidewalk, the neighbor’s dog…
And then it happened.
As an exceedingly strict mother pulled up, her face in a rictus of horror framed by the window of her minivan, HER SON leapt off my front steps, tangerine-colored jets erupting in all directions, and, while screaming “AY CARUMBA!” jammed the Silly String nozzles INTO HIS OWN EARS! and pulled the trigger.
He committed stringicide.
Admittedly, I was seized with an urge to high-five, but I couldn’t as I saw his mom’s face change from “look-all-the-boys-aren’t-playing-call-of-duty,” to “oh-my-God-my-son-just-went-deaf!”
I jerked the kid up from his Tebow celebration, dug two nubbins of hardened orange gack out of his ears, and whisper-yelled “That was awesome,” before setting my face in a mask of stern reprimand and carrying him to his mom, who inspected his ears like a miner digging for bullion.
She came up empty, but the hairy eyeball I received still haunts me to this day.
Christopher Garlington lives in a standard two kids, wife, dog, corner-lot, two car, small business owner American dream package. He drives a 2003 Camry, sports a considerable notebook fetish, and smokes Arturo Fuente Partaga Maduros at the Cigar King as often as possible. His stories have appeared in Atlanta Parenting, Florida, Orlando, Orlando Weekly, Catholic Digest, Retort, Another Realm, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, South Lit, and other magazines. His short story collection, “King of the Road,” is available on Amazon.
