Down with the goody bag.

The time has come to start planning Bean's 3rd birthday party. Excuse me as I cry a little. Three years! Goodness. She was just born it seems like. Anyhoo...let's continue.

In planning, you, and I mean me, have to come up with a theme. Our theme this year is Minnie Mouse. She beat me out at Halloween and now at birthday time, too. Stupid cute mouse.

Again, anyhoo...so we have a theme. After you, and I mean me, decide on a theme, we set off to the party store. Sidebar - where the heck were these stores when we were kids? I am very upset that I didn't have a chance to run crazy in a store like that when I was little.

Anyhoo times three...back at the party store, we pick out the Minnie Mouse junk that will show off our theme. After we have that stuff loaded into the cart, we venture over to the bane of my existence this week - the goody bag aisle.

Who in the holy cheese came up with the idea of giving out goody bags at childrens birthday parties? I'd like to slap the taste right out of their mouth. Was it Martha? Martha is great and all but sometimes her ideas wind up costing me a whole lotta money.

I feel that giving out goody bags is like bribing people to come to parties. Then why do I do them? Cause I don't want to be the un-cool one that doesn't give them out. Yep, I said it. Peer pressure still gets me. I know I could take a stand and not hand them out. I know I could. But I'm scared. I'm scared of those little kids that now expect a prize for showing up.

Why don't grown-ups give out goody bags at their birthday parties? Some do, I guess. I don't get invited to those parties. Humph. And you can't count weddings and showers cause you have to dress up for those and if I have to wear pantyhose, I deserve a goody bag...and alcohol.

We never got goody bags at any birthday party we went to when we were growing up. You know what our goody bags were? Cake and freaking ice cream. A good time with your friends for an afternoon. Those were our prizes. I never expected a goody bag at a party. I hoped for punch but never a bag filled with crappy plastic toys and candy. You know what that is? That's Halloween, people! Not birthday parties!

I'm fired up now. I'm gonna take a stand against these goody bags. No more will they be the bane of my existence. I will never be a slave again to the goody bag.

I'll start next year.