I recently went to a party to celebrate a 25th wedding anniversary. In this day and age, simply having a 25th wedding anniversary is quite a feat and cause for great celebration. However, in this particular case, I just wish that I didn't have to celebrate it with the couple in question. The problem is that they are a family who I have known for some time and in that time I have grown to like them less and less. They are crass, crude, entirely self-centered and juvenile, all of which I cannot stomach. I realise that I am a snob, but what can I do?
So, on Sunday evening, I was dragged, reluctantly, along with my family to this party. Due to the fact that my one sister is currently in the UK, our party of party-goers consisted of my parents, my sister and I. The party was set to start at 5 (what kind of dinner party starts at 5 in the afternoon?!) and the dress code, according to the invitation anyway, was 'smart'. This in itself caused great consternation as none of us could figure out where on the continuum between naked and meeting the Queen of England 'smart' lay, but we figured it sat around the region of smart-casual and dressed accordingly.
Upon our arrival, we realised that smart actually meant, dress as if you are going clubbing in a really seedy area, or alternatively, as if you were going to a house party.
Starting the evening realising that you are severely over-dressed didn't help to improve my outlook on the festivities. The immediate arrival of a waiter with sparkling wine improved my assessment of the situation and after discovering the snack table, I began to think that perhaps things really weren't going to be all that bad. I was gravely mistaken...
To cut a very long, and painful, story short, things tobogganed downhill from this point on. The sparkling wine ran out within about the first 30 minutes, only to be replaced by a truly vile, dry white wine which put a proverbial cork in my sister's and my plans to get tipsy in an effort to make the experience bearable. The DJ for the evening turned out to be tragically overconfident with regard to the ability to woo the audience with his wit. In addition to this, his ability to cram just about every politically incorrect concept into everything he said, as well as a great number of expletives as punctuation didn't exactly warm my sister or I to him. There are hip movements displayed by a 50-something old man on the dancefloor I witnessed that are now permanently burned into my mind which, really, I could have done without. Not knowing a single person there, apart from the celebrated couple and their family didn't help much, but having a camera eased the boredom slightly.
Luckily, we had been placed at a table with a family that had two small children, thus providing the means for our escape. We kept a close eye on the state of fatigue of the children and with the emergence of the first yawn, we proclaimed that we too had best be on our way.
Much to my relief, my mother has decided that this was to be the final event of the family in question that we would ever attend. I've waited about 5 long years to hear that...
