Gratuitous Domestic Posting (TM) - Cranky Traditionalist Party Preparation

As we were assembling the supplies to take over to Llama-ette No. 2's birthday party tomorrow, came before us the matter of the pinata.

If you haven't been to a kid's birthday lately, you may not know that these days it is quite common - when a pinata is featured at all - to have the little darlin's pull a series of strings dangling from the bottom of the thing in order to break it open, rather than employing the more traditional method of brute force.

This drives me absolutely batty and is, as far as I'm concerned, a classic symptom of What Is Wrong with our Culture, Child-rearing Division. I don't know whether the Tweedledum of Potential Injury and/or Liability or the Tweedledee of Concern Over Promoting Violent Behavior started this particular practice (or as some people probably call it, "option"), but I'm convinced they're working in tandem to perpetuate it.

Well not on my watch, pilgrim.

Looking about me for materials with which to do the pinata right, I discovered that by removing the head of my large garage broom and screwing a hook into the end of the handle, I had a perfect pole from which to dangle the pinata in front of the kiddies. I also found that by removing the head from the gels' toy rake, I was left with a four foot wooden pole that made an ideal whackin' stick. To wrap both of these in pink and green crepe paper and to festoon them with streamers of the same material was, for me, the work of a moment. (Actually, it was the work of about an hour, but I was so pleased with the results that it seemed like just a moment.)

When she was shown the festive new weapon, my soon-to-be-five year old's eyes blazed with a certain buccaneering gleem I've noticed in them more than once. She knows exactly what to do. And I guarantee both she and her little friends will have a whoooole lot more fun taking swings at Mr. Paper Mache Star tomorrow than they would have had simply yanking on lame little pieces of string dangling from it.