Ballsy Parkers

Sunday evening, Husband and I went to a 40th birthday party in Prospect Park, which is the Central Park of Brooklyn. (It was even designed by the same person, Frederick law Olmstead, who incidentally, also designed the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, an event of which I am slightly obsessed.) The birthday boy’s wife had reserved a pavilion in the park, so come rain or shine, the party could go on uninterrupted. It was a gorgeous day in a beautiful place, which could have made for a perfect party.

The only set back for a party of this type is the other people in the park who are not invited to the party. Damn, people have fucking balls. Husband and I stood with our mouths agape as several random people wandered in and asked for food. I am not talking about homeless people, either. I am talking about a woman who had been playing with her kids nearby, then noticed the balloons and went up to the birthday boy and asked if she could take “some pastries,” meaning the cake that had not yet been cut. When our friend explained that she could take some after the guests had been served, she stomped off, pissed at his “rudeness.”

Not five minutes later, another woman wandered in. She started to ask for cake, and when our friend again began to say “no, not yet,” she went ballistic, calling him a fucking asshole and fucking this and that. As she stormed out of the pavilion, she was yelling at other guests that when she had her daughter’s birthday party there earlier this year, she gave strangers the leftovers and she didn’t understand how we were so selfish. Of course, that is exactly what our friend had been about to offer if she had bothered to listen to what he was saying.

The point of this story goes to my little blurby about being a humanist misanthrope. Months ago, when some nut job was leaving nasty, but very mockable, comments on CUSS, she wondered how one could simultaneous like and loathe people. This is a perfect example.