R.I.P. D.F.W.

Here is the scene:

V.F.W. Post #6917. The entire back room, which is about the size of a small indoor concert venue,¹ has been rented out for a baby shower. My cousin, whose mother has undertaken the mighty task of planning and pulling off this shindig, is the young mother-to-be. She has hired outside help to come in and strip and wax the floors, the cost of which I won't even bother to divulge here.² We arrive shortly before 11:00 AM to begin preparations.

Two rows of five fold out tables, each about 6 feet long and 3 feet wide, are placed in the direct center of the room. The entire hall is flooded in fluorescent light, courtesy of three rows of five fixtures each. Each table has a light blue silk cloth draped on top of it, along with chintzy centerpieces, party favors, small baby-bottle shaped containers of candy and gummy bears, and small blue pens (the purpose of which will only be revealed later). Each table has eight fold out chairs stationed around it, four on each side. The east and west walls are adorned with heavy, dark, navy blue curtains to cover up the dart boards that hang on the walls. Banners reading “IT'S A BOY!” are strung across the top of the curtains.

Small sandbag weights, each holding a plethora of multicolored helium balloons, are placed in the center of each table.

The south wall has four more such tables, each with matching tablecloths, clustered around it. Each table has about a dozen trays of Korean food. The husband of the young mother-to-be is half Korean, and his family (but mostly his mother's friends) have showed up en masse and each one has prepared native dishes. There is enough food to feed a small army.³ The western wall has two eight-by-four tables lined up alongside it, each with its own light blue tablecloth, with the addition of darker blue tableskirts attached around the edges, making them appear more festive. Perched on top of the tables is a multitude of presents and gifts. They completely fill the table, and getting them all to fit was not unlike an amateur game of Tetris. In addition to the bounty of presents are three separate cakes: one chocolate, one white, one marble.

The tables with the presents are also adorned with helium balloons, and excess balloons are placed on top of unused, stacked-up chairs in the far northwest corner. Thin, blue paper streamers are strung across the ceiling, meticulously twisted just so as to give them a helical shape, and crisscrossed to meet in the center, where another cluster of balloons are hanging from the ceiling.⁴ Also along the western wall is a sine wave of colored lantern-lights hanging from the ceiling, which are plugged in to the northern wall via extension cord.

The extravagance of the occasion cannot be overstated.

Guests begin flooding in shortly after 2:00 PM, and I wisely choose a corner seat in the back (i.e., the north end), a vantage point from which to observe. I am here to determine the answer to a question that has been nagging in my brain since the whole thing started: what really is the point of a baby shower?

Food is served immediately. The line takes over fifteen minutes to get through, and all the people standing in it constitute a veritable melting pot of cultures; an Americana microcosm. Koreans outnumber Anglos and Hispanics about 2-to-1, of which there is about an equal number of, and there is one lone Brit. His name is James, and the task of keeping him company sort of fell on me by proxy. Everyone else in my family has sort of fell into a separate niche of company, save for my youngest cousin, who is shoved so far up his girlfriend's ass it's hard to believe he's consciously aware of anything or anyone else around him. The final table in the buffet line is filled with over a dozen porcelain plates arranged on tiered platforms that contain fresh fruit and vegetables and dips of every conceivable variety. The honeydew melon is remarkably fresh.

James and I fill our plates to the brim and take our seats in the back. We don't speak much, he mostly makes pointed observations about how much different this ceremony is in the United States compared to the United Kingdom.⁵ I have no idea what any of the food on my plate is. Some of it I've had before at other social functions where Korean dishes were served, but I know not the names of these dishes nor what their ingredients are. Indeed, only one has meat in it so far as I can tell, the rest seems to be made up of rice, beans or seeds of some kind, and small, stringy, crunchy noodles that taste like something that would typically be fed to marine life in captivity. It smells like an indoor aquarium. My plastic fork snaps in half with a loud thwack when I attempt to cut into the meat, so I relegate myself to a mountainous heap of refrigerated deli spirals. My stomach begins to hurt after less than ten minutes.

My family is spread out rather linearly: my mother sits in the row in front of me, my aunt two rows in front of her, and my youngest cousin one row ahead of her. My cousin's girlfriend appears to be staring at me for the majority of the meal, and I shift uncomfortably in my seat, trying to avoid letting her know that I am aware that she is indeed staring at me and that it is making me uncomfortable. A large man in a red shirt and a backwards cap sits across from me and James. He has large tattoos on his arms in the design of pirate flags. I instantly despise him.

Despite this being a specialized celebration, there are in fact three pregnant women here.⁶

A cavalcade of small children (who were presumably only interested in consuming sweets) are running around the room, screaming at each other and making guttural noises that I cannot decipher. Three of them are small Hispanic girls, their pink and green dresses presenting an image so diametrically opposed to their demeanor it is downright frightening. They are like miniature, well-dressed nightmares.

After the meal, a raffle is held in the form of small games,⁷ the winners of which get to pick from a selection of pricey home appliances and sundries. No one seems to be really interested, despite the fact that my aunt's loud voice and years of experience as a teacher allows her to command the large room instantly and hold everyone's attention. Another couple sits down across from me and James. The man says to us “I'm not playing baby games,” then looks to whom I presume to be his wife and says “You can play baby games.” He and James sit and pick at the candy on the table, popping sweets into their mouths absently.

Instead of playing along, I continue to sit by myself and observe.⁸ I still haven't figured out what the point of all this is. I can't help but feel that it's kind of obnoxious. There are more gifts here being handed to the young mother-to-be than all of my birthdays and Christmases combined. And for what? They're technically supposed to be for the baby, but the baby isn't even here yet, so really they're for my cousin. It's not like the baby really needs them, or even has the capacity to be grateful for them. Sure, the baby needs clothes and diapers and such, but my cousin is well-off, and her husband can more than provide for the child. The whole affair is just gaudy.

A sort of post-meal lethargy steals over me, and I saunter outside to have a cigarette.⁹ It is well after 4:00 PM now. While I'm smoking, several guests begin filing out, heading home early. I contemplate jumping in my car and leaving as well, but, being part of the family, I will be expected to stick around and help clean up afterward. Leaving now would definitely assure me an ass-chewing later on. James peeks out momentarily and asks for a hit off my cigarette.¹⁰ I shudder to think of how much money this whole bonanza has cost the parties involved. Granted, my cousin's husband's mother is extremely well-off, and it means very little to her either way, so long as her son and daughter-in-law are satisfied, but this has undoubtedly put a severe strain on my side of the family.

After smoking, I find that the nicotine has done little to reinvigorate me, and I end up taking a small nap with my head on my arms at the table.¹¹ When I awaken, nearly everyone has left, and my cousin is still seated at the front of the western wall, unwrapping presents. My mother is sitting next to her with a pad and pencil, diligently documenting everything she receives and collating the various cards and notes attached to the presents. I stumble groggily to the refrigerator behind the tables of food, which several Korean ladies are beginning to clean up and put away before leaving, and get a bottle of water, then slouch back down in a chair and check my phone. Some of the balloons seem to empathize with me. 5:30 PM. My youngest cousin is already gone, he had the good sense to get out before he was asked to do any manual labor, and is most likely at home right now boinking his girlfriend. I shudder again and shove this thought from my mind.

Finally, after the last present is unwrapped, and everything is loaded into my cousin's husband's truck, and the trash has been taken out to the dumpster in the dirt parking lot, and the folding chairs and tables have been picked up and stowed away in the northwest corner, and the floors have been swept, and the streamers taken down, and the leftovers loaded up in my aunt's car, and the balloons shoved in the backseat, and everyone double checking their pockets to make sure they haven't forgotten anything, and all the perfunctory hugs and goodbyes have been executed, I make my way back to my car, which has been sitting in the sun for over seven hours now, put my key in the ignition, shrug and say “Well, at least we got a free meal out of it,” then pull away, and merge onto the highway in the setting sun.

1 For anyone reading who has been to the Emerson Theatre in Indianapolis, you wouldn't be far off.

2 Hint: it's a three digit number, and the first digit is larger than five.

3 I have no idea what this expression means. How large is a “small army”? There were roughly eighty people in attendance, but this hardly constitutes any army, even a small one. Suffice to say, there was a shitload of food.

4 These particular balloons are not filled with helium, for obvious reasons of elementary physics.

5 Including, but not limited to, calling diapers “nappies”.

6 One of the attendees, in fact, seems confused as to which baby's arrival she is supposed to be celebrating.

7 Mostly puzzles involving coming up with words for animals using each letter of the alphabet (the entire shower is centered around the theme of Noah's Ark and under-the-sea type gaiety), and a house variation on “The Price is Right.”

8 It's not like I could really win, anyway. I'm technically part of the group that's hosting the celebration, and awarding me prizes would undoubtedly be seen as nepotism; besides which, none of the items on display really interest me.

9 Salem Menthols, which I got on sale, and are not my preferred brand.

10 Which he affectionately refers to as a “square.”

11 A practice which I perfected in high school, and still to this day seems like second nature to me, despite the incredibly awkward posture involved.