Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Happy Birthday

My youngest son was invited to a classmate’s birthday party and naturally he
was very excited.

He is just six, any party would be awesome, right? We didn’t get any
invitation in the mail, instead

we received an e-vite which we responded. My youngest son started counting
down four days before

the party, right up to when we got in the car, headed out to the party. The
party was being held in

a local church. We didn’t think much of it, we figured they were church
members and the church was nice enough to

let them use the place.

We dropped off my son at 2:00 pm, the party was until 4:00 pm. After
dropping our son off we went and did some shopping

in the immediate area. Two hour went by quickly, we went back to the church
to pick up our son. When we arrived, he was sitting

on a bench, we picked him up and said thank you to the host.

I asked my son if he had fun, his reply surprised me. He said “No”. I was a
little puzzled so I asked him, didn’t you play games or anything?

My son said, “No, there were no games, no food, just a birthday cake and
juice pouches. We didn’t do anything.”

Wow! I thought to myself, how in the world would someone throw a birthday
for a six year old and not have any kind of games for kids?

And no food?

I spoke with my wife for a few moments and we finally figured it out.
The host family didn’t send out any invitation via postal mail.

They most likely used the church without paying a dime. They set the time
between 2 – 4 pm so they didn’t need to serve food.

I remembered some 20 or so parents had responded and confirmed their child’s
attendance. A birthday cake and some juice pouches

in exchange for over 20 birthday presents. That was some serious return on
investment!

I understand the economy is tough now, but I felt cheated, not only that, my
son was cheated.

original post date: May 2, 2009

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