Friday, May 16, 2008

Showers...


As a male teacher in an Elementary School, I am constantly attending showers, both baby and wedding.  I am sure that I have attended more showers in 4 years than most men attend in their lifetimes.  As a result, I have become a connoisseur of showers. I have learned that a successful shower must include all of the following: (These are things that I would have never known if I had chosen to be in advertising and marketing like the rest of the boys in my family.)

  • A creative centerpiece that is either edible or unusual.  
  • Paper wrapped to the tables. The tighter the better.
  • A scrapbook filled with beloved treasures and pictures. 
  • A game involving diapers, embarrassing stories, riddles about baby names and the like.
  • Women cackling and whooping like frantic, overhyped pigeons.
  • A line of food that usually involves a lot of stuffed things: eggs, crapes, eclairs, etc.  Women like food that is stuffed.  
  • This phrase is heard at least 10 times during a shower: "I probably shouldn't eat this, but it looks soooo good!"
  • "That is so cute!"  heard today over 50 times.
  • Me, at the long table of food getting my third helping of stuffed things.  I can't help it, I love free food, and if I am paying into a pot to get some baby a $20 nightgown that she will wear for 3 months, you better be damn sure that I am going to splurge on all the food.
  • A bowl of punch with floating fruit in it.  Today the fruit was strawberries.  I learned that it is difficult to drink strawberries.  After the punch is gone from the paper cup, they stick to the bottom.  It took "four taps", a "tongue swipe" and finally a "finger pinch" to get it out.  Why do women put floating fruit in punch?  
I realize that as a man, I am not in tune with the need and desire that women share of bonding over a cream puff and a display of paper mache teddy bears and sock puppet raindrops.  (I am not sure what that last sentence meant or if it even makes sense, but it sounds like stuff that would be at a shower.)

This is the end of my shower rant.  Love to all!  Abe

1 comment:

Tammy said...

Pretty good list but you forgot to list the book that gets passed around for all the experienced mothers, non-mothers, grandmothers or wanna be mothers to write some cutesy little thing about babies or something helpful about how to take care of a baby so the new mom can reference in the middle of the night when she can't figure out why this new thing she loves so much is screaming so hard and won't sleep for more than an hour :).