Our friend Jen had her baby shower this afternoon. It was at her friend’s place, a giant house in the middle of nowhere. I missed the driveway at first, because I was thinking “the house must be right after this country club.” But turns out there was indeed a house and not a golf course beyond that wrought iron gate and lengthy driveway.
There was a dry erase board on the front porch written in a girly font. CONGRATULATIONS JENN AND KEVIN – WELCOME BABY GIRL, it read.
I snickered. I’ve been friends with Jen for almost a decade, and there was a brief moment of embarrassment when I received her baby shower invitation last month.
“This is kind of awkward,” I said, “but have I been spelling your name wrong all this time?”
Turns out it wasn’t me, but that the woman with the giant house throwing the shower couldn’t spell. “She was just so excited about the invitations, I didn’t have the heart to tell her she spelled my name wrong,” Jen said.
Flash forward to the porch and the additional N in Jen’s name. “Still didn’t tell her, huh?” I said to her inside.
“I feel like it’s almost over,” she said, “so at this point, what’s the harm?”
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The party was pretty tame in comparison to the wedding, which was over the top. I drank a bottle of champagne by myself, and I got funnier as the day progressed. The only noteworthy thing was the shower cake, which was made by a friend’s son’s girlfriend.
It was a white cake with vanilla frosting and a bloody baby doll head in the center.
I asked several people why there was a severed baby head on Jen’s cake, but nobody seemed to know. Even for Kevin and Jen, celebrating the birth of their daughter with decapitation felt dark.
Then I looked closer at the cake and realized the baby was not dead, but crowning. The icing on the cake was in the shape of a vagina, featuring chocolate sprinkles for pubic hair and a hershey’s kiss where the asshole would be.
“That’s a nice detail,” I said to Melinda, pointing to the chocolate. “Not enough people talk about how frequently women shit themselves during birth.”
I Don't Belong Here. 