Just When You Think Things are Starting to Calm Down.....

they don't!

So our cootie friends got here. They actually thought I was banning them from the house until we combed through their heads! Oh my gosh! So once I told them to get their cootie selves in here we combed through and..no sweat! Didn't find nary a louse or egg on one of 'em. So, see here people, the combing is SO important! That's what Sooz's been doing--and she's probably 90% or better through with cootie-itis!

So, we have chilled out all afternoon, played cards, talked, picked up the very big birthday cake, had dinner, baked cookies, and played outside. Then I had to go over to the place where we are having the party in order to get the key. This is a place that a local church kind of runs as an outreach to kids in our town. It's a building that has pool tables, fooz ball (however you spell it) tables, air hockey, and other game tables and such, plus a snack bar, room to watch movies, space to sit and talk or dance or whatever. And they are open for kids 6-12 on Friday nights and kids 13-18 on Saturday nights. So I was supposed to come on by tonite and get the key and any instructions I needed. So I get there and....it was closed! Nobody was there! And there was a sign that said, "Closed until next week."

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooohkkkkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.....................great.

So I went home and looked for the phone number of the woman I made the reservation with and couldn't find it, so instead decided to call the church since it was my only hope. Thankfully the phone forwards to the pastor's house. He answered and...

DollyMama: Hi. This is DollyMama. I have rented the building for a party tomorrow and was told to come by to get the key tonite, but nobody is there.

Pastor: Oh dear. We have a problem.

DM: Really? (thinking: why am I not surprised??)

Pastor: You see, we had a rummage sale there last weekend, and a truck was supposed to come and pick up all of the unsold items, but they didn't come this week. The building is filled to capacity with boxes and bags of stuff, so we couldn't even have our regular programs for youth this weekend because there was so much of it. Oh my......I am so sorry.....this is terrible....

DM: Oh. My. Goodness. This is not good.

Pastor: What kind of event did you say this was?

DM: My child's birthday party.

Pastor: Uh huh. Oh dear. How many people do you expect?

DM: Over 70.

Pastor: Over 70?! Oh dear. Oh dear. This is not good.

Yeah...tell me about it!

So he went on to say he was so sorry and he doesn't handle the rentals and so hadn't known that someone was expecting the building this weekend. He could offer me the church fellowship hall if that would suit me, and of course I would get a full refund of my money. (NO KIDDING!!!)

So I got off the phone to think through my options which at the time consisted of holding a party in the backyard which would normally be fine except that it is going to be something like 97 degrees tomorrow with scattered thunderstorms. Or, we could go to the church fellowship hall and sit at long tables and pick our noses whilst we wish my son a happy birthday....and what 13 year old boy wouldn't LOVE a party like that?! Social torture PLUS boredom!!!!

And, hey--what would I more like to do at the end of a long and busy day than to call up 70 people to redirect them to a new party spot?

Well, thankfully Sooz and her husband were here, and her husband talked some sense into me. His recommendation was that we get the key, see how much of this junk there was, and see if we could get it out of there and have the party as planned. So I called the pastor back and he was starting to have that same idea. He said he thought it might all fit into the TV room if we were inclined to move it there.

Uh huh.

So Sooz's husband and our 4 strongest, manliest sons went along to fetch the key and go see what was what at the youth building. And what was it? Oh, just like maybe hundreds of boxes and flimsy garbage bags full of JUNK! Spread all over the place....looking very intimidating.

I looked it over dismally and asked him, "Do you think we can do it?"

and he said, "Absolutely. No prob."

and we got to work.

Do you know that after about 30 or 40 minutes we had it almost all moved into this one side room? The pastor called me to tell me he had 5 church members coming right over to help me out, and by the time they got there were we about finished moving rummage crapola into that room! From there we and they vacuumed the whole entire place which was pretty messy, moved all the tables and chairs into place, and brought in our party stuff from the Burb. In one hour we were OUT OF THERE and the place is basically set up!

YAY! Disaster averted!

(And, I get my money back!)

It was really fun for the boys, who were spurred on to great manliness by Sooz's guy, and they all had a great attitude about it. Hey--combing for cooties AND moving a mountain of junk in one day--THIS is the stuff that makes a friendship full of great memories!