Pink or Blue

My older sister just had a pink or blue party, and when she cut into the cake, the pink cake mix revealed that she was having a little girl.

 

Aw, isn’t it cute how some people’s pink or blue parties work out?

 

Mine didn’t.

 

When pink or blue parties became all the rage around the time I was pregnant with my second son, my husband and I felt like we owed him some kind of a cool story since so far, all he’d gotten was to hear me say, “This sucks so bad.  Pregnancy blows,” over and over in utero.  In fact, the hubs told me to make sure I said that as soon as the baby popped out so that he knew he was in the right place.

 

I e-mailed a few friends with instructions:

 

Listen, bitches. I’m about halfway through this misery, and even though I can’t drink beer or smoke ciggies or bleach my hair brittle, I CAN eat cake since—thank the good Lord in Heaven for the sweet blessings that He pours on us from above—I haven’t gotten a case of the godforsaken gestational diabetes, no matter how many bowls of Reese’s-topped chocolate ice cream with syrup I’ve eaten. 

 

So don’t ruin it for me, assholes.  Come over and wear pink if you think the baby will be a girl or blue if you think the baby will be a boy.  (Holy shit, I can’t believe I had to explain that.  I need some new friends because you guys are stupid.)  Oh, and there will be pizza and even beer for those of you who are allowed to drink it—and are prepared to receive the old stink eye and endure shouts of “You’re DRINKING in front of me?  You asshole!” from cheerful preggy over here.

 

Looking forward to seeing you all!  Blessings!

 

I was a teensy bit of an asshole when I was pregnant.  Even worse than usual.

 

Shockingly, I had several attendees at the party.  I think they just enjoyed seeing me miserable, since I normally totally enjoyed seeing all of them miserable in different facets of their lives. You get what you give, I guess, dammit.

 

At this point, I still looked cute.  (Remind me to tell you about the severe case of reverse body dysmorphia I had later in the pregnancy, when the adorable way I thought I looked certainly wasn’t meshing with what others were seeing.)  Although I’d always wanted boys, I had dressed in a pair of pink yoga pants and a white ruched maternity shirt, because isn’t that always the way?  If you want a boy, you’d better bet your fat pregnant ass you’re having a girl.  I figured I might as well just succumb to it.

 

When Mom and Dad walked through the door, my dad sized me up.

 

“Dammit, I wore the wrong color,” he said immediately, grabbing his bag to pull out a blue shirt and change.

 

“What do you mean, you wore the wrong color?” I asked, eyeing the striped pink shirt he had on.

 

“Your ass is huge—way too big for you to be having a girl,” my dad explained.  “Women carry it all in their asses if it’s a boy.  Wanda, look at her ass.  What do you think?”  (My mom’s name is not Wanda, but since I am anonymous and have to make one up anyway, I thought I’d have fun with it.)

 

“Oh, I don’t know, Herschel,” my mom replied, pushing Dad aside to get a better view of my apparent monstrosity of an ass.  “It’s no bigger than normal…”  (Oh my gosh, I’m having so much fun with these names.  I think I’ll make my older sister Bertha.)  (My sincere apologies to any Wandas, Herschels, or Berthas I’m offending out there.) 

 

My sister Bertha came to stand beside my mom and dad.  “Yeah, Mom’s right.  Shay’s skinny, but her gut and her ass have always been too big for her frame.  Her hips, too,” she added, nodding her head as she took her turn looking me up and down.

 

I’d had enough.  “Alright, assholes, that’s it!  THAT.IS.IT!” I yelled.  “Should we go around and point out everyone else’s fat areas?  Should we, Your Fatnesses?”  My voice had grown shrill, and “fatnesses” had come out so high that I wasn’t even sure a dog could hear it.  I also wasn’t sure I’d used the right word (Should it have been “fatnessi”?), but I was pretty sure that they wouldn’t notice.

 

But my family had heard what I’d said.  And they had the decency to look shamefaced, all of them casting their eyes toward the floor as they thought with regret about how awful they’d been to me.

 

Okay, no they didn’t. They so totally did not do all of that eye-casting and feeling bad stuff.  That was actually what would have happened in the dreams of the family I wished I’d gotten.

 

Instead, my real family started laughing, and I think it was Wanda who said, “Go ahead and start pointing out our fat areas.  They still won’t be as bad as yours are right now!”

 

Big bunch of assholes.

 

But it gets better. 

 

We sat down to cut the cake, family and friends surrounding us, waiting with bated breath to see if we were having a boy or a girl.  And when I helped my older son push the cake-cutter through the frosting, we saw…PINK!

 

“Aw, shit,” my husband muttered.

 

There was silence, but only until I started crying. It’s not like I wasn’t happy.  Sure, I’d wanted all boys, but I’d be happy with a girl, too.  It’s just that all of these feelings that I hadn't even realized I had bubbled to the surface.  “A girl?!” I wailed.  “Is this God’s idea of a cruel joke?  We have horrible genes!  I only just started learning how to cover them…how am I going to help my little girl learn to overcome this DNA?  Is it even legal to bleach a newborn’s hair?”

 

I flipped open my laptop to google that question as my mom, dad, and older sister looked on in stunned silence.  They understood.  Honestly, we’re a pretty good-looking bunch, but it takes LOTS of work.  Like, hours. 

 

At least the boys of the family—well, they get the ugly gene, too, but only for about 15 years, after which they blossom into gorgeous, sought-after men.  The girls in our family…well, our noses just keep getting bigger and our faces horsier (at least in my case).  And I didn’t want that for my little girl.

 

All of this was running through my head as our guests stared at that pink filling in stunned silence.  You could have heard a pin drop—I mean, if there had been anyone there working on a needlepoint project who had happened to drop a pin—when the hubs’s eyes lit up with a thought.

 

“Maybe she’ll look like me,” he said soothingly as he rubbed my back.

 

Turns out it didn’t matter, my peeps.  Because the cake lady had been wrong.  That’s right, she’d made the wrong color cake mix.

 

When the hubs decided to check the second envelope that my  undiagnosed-OCD ass had insisted the ultrasound tech give to us, too, the paper clearly said BOY.

 

“Told you,” my Dad supplied helpfully, digging into his piece of cake with a knowing nod at my ass.

 

My second son will never have even the smallest doubt that he’s loved.  Because my older sister Bertha caught it on tape when my husband cut a piece of cake and hoisted his beer up in a toast, saying, “Good.  I didn’t want a girl, anyway.”

 

I’d say my second son has a pretty good story, at least, wouldn’t you? 

 

I would love, love, love to hear any funny experiences you’ve had with pink or blue parties—or even just ideas on how to throw a good one.  Because obviously millions of readers from around the world come to Trashy Blog for ideas on how to throw an appropriate theme party.  (Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.)  But seriously, so many variations of the original pink or blue cake party have arisen (balloons in a box, for example), that it would be cool to hear yours!

 

And since that send-off was just a little too peppy for a blog like this, let me just add one thing to carry you through the weekend:  SUCK IT. 

 

Hey, peeps, I have an image to uphold.  I can’t be going all soft.