It wasn’t the worst party ever, but it was pretty bad.
I hate to sound ungrateful. Any invitation to someone’s home should be treated with more grace than I am about to levy right now. But you know how you feel after you sucker yourself into watching the two-hour Bachelor special, cotton-brained about yourself and wanting your two hours back? That’s not how you should feel after a Mardi Gras party.
I am fairly certain the hosts won’t read this because we are separated by more degrees than I am from Kevin Bacon. They are perfectly fine people, but dudes should not be in the party-giving business. She tries much too hard and forgot to take her Paxil; he’s a lampshade. A lampshade that is the same color as the wallpaper. A lampshade that is dusty and rusty and a little cock-eyed. Just try to talk to him, I dare you.
I knew this going in, but it was supposed to be a decent-sized party so I thought the buffer people would be there–the friends of theirs that are engaging and funny and partyable–and I also thought that we could just drop in, put in a good showing and mosey along. But no buffer people; I think I jumped when the door opened even more than the hostess did, hoping the buffer people would arrive. So that meant the party was REALLY small, which of course upset the hostess, and I feel bad when that happens to someone so I felt the need to stay, and exclaim over the food and decorations and keep the party banter up up up. I really should have been paid an escort fee for the night. It was work.
And then I ate the baby.
Who puts an unexpected King Cake baby in freaking streusel-walnut-green-and-purple-sugar-topped creme brûlée? Someone trying too hard, that’s who. Someone who expected a Martha Stewart Kodak moment of surprise and discovery when one of her guests, savoring her delicacy, delighted upon a tiny Cracker Jack prize and exclaimed with glee “Good fortune, friends! A surprise Mardi Gras baby Jesus! I shall happily share my luck with you and throw the next party! Though it won’t be as good as this one, Marge, you little hostess minx!”
Her fantasy was thwarted. Thinking it was just a streuselly nut, I bit down on that little bitch, cracking its right arm off, which I think I swallowed before spitting the rest out into the sink to find the plastic naked little orphan in a pile of my mama bird half-chewed dregs. How’s that for party favors? The accident did give me an excuse to leave Sleepy Hollow clutching my jaw with a fake toothache and a scored Vicodin. Happy Mardi Gras! Who carried your homeowner’s issurance?
So right this moment a tiny pink flesh-colored hand is lodging its little fingers somewhere in my digestive system where it may fester and regenerate and burst out of me as a full-sized alien hand sci-fi-horror film-style. Which you will never get to see because I suck with the camera. Or it might scrub me clean like broccoli.
It probably will never leave me, though. But I will never if it does, because I am not going to sort through my own scat looking for a doll hand. I’m not doing that.
I’m trying to feel lucky about this, especially if it stays. I am now unique. Not everyone has a tiny Chinese Jesus hand in their gut as a constant companion. Even though I am done having babies, I have this wee one in me forever. It’s like communion. I bet if I look behind me when I’ve been walking on the sand, alongside my two footprints will be one petite handprint and the occasional mini-sandcastle showing me that I am never alone.
Auspiciously, my dessert dollhand will outlive me. Amongst my bones you will find it, and probably a few paperclips and a plasticine bag I swallowed while sucking the cocaine out and some bits of Lean Cuisine dishes, but most notably you will see the dollhand, palm up, as if to say, “Deb led her life well. She loved a party. She loved nut streusel with gusto. She was a good mother to babies real and plastic. Can you spare some change to help me get a sandwich?”
In addition to the baby hand inside me, I have a one-handed baby Jesus trinket to treasure. I could just add it to all of my food, to bring luck to every meal and to see how long it takes me to eat all of the disparate body parts. I think I will drill a hole through its teensy weensy skull and wear it around my neck to remember that life is short, seize the day, make the best of the bad parties you end up at by stealing Adderall and Soma from the bathroom, and chew carefully, because you never really know. That’s the takeaway from this cautionary tale. You never really know when you could swallow something that will change your life forever.