A few years ago my family drove our friend Tara and her daughter to an event. Tara, to show her appreciation of the ride, bought my boys Pez Dispensers and Pez Candy. For the rest of the day I think Tara regretted ever having car pooled with us.
I appreciated her kindness of the idea of a small token of appreciation given to my kids but for the rest of the day I cursed her. Not only under my breath did I say bad things about Tara and her gift but I also ranted right to her face. You see I hate Pez Dispensers.
Did you ever try to load Pez candy into one of those dispensers? You pull the spring loaded inside "clip" up out of the casing, struggle to keep it out while loading individual pieces of candy into the slide. It is inevitable that the slide snaps shut, or that one of the pieces of candy, which are too small for adult hands, gets stuck sideways. You then need to empty what you already put in the device and start all over. The wrappers to the Pez candy, most likely due to the fact that there is no expiration date, end up sticking to the candy making it difficult to slide them into the dispenser.Try doing this over and over again, with coffee induced jitters for multiple children for multiple packs of candy. It is torture.
On average it takes me 10 minutes to load a Pez Dispenser. On average it takes my kids 90 seconds to eat all the candy in a Pez Dispenser. My kids complain that it takes too long to load the candy. I tell them to just eat the candy. They argue that the candy has to go into the toy dispenser (so they can pop Jango Fett's head back and suck a rectangle candy from his Adams apple) because that is how it is supposed to be. The turnaround time to whiner ratio is overwhelming. I hate Pez Dispensers.
Besides Tara giving the boys Pez Dispensers they also occasionally receive them in gift bags from friends birthday parties. Which since I am on the subject, is another pet peeve of mine.
I was talking with my friend Jim the other day and we were trying to figure out when did the whole giving a gift bag of party favors to your invited b-day party guests become a thing? When I was a kid I went to a bunch of birthday parties but the only thing I ever left with was a belly full of cake and ice cream. It seems like now every kid who attends a birthday party comes home with a bag full of dollar store choke hazards and carpet clutterers. These tchotkes always find their way in or under my furniture.
As parents shoudn't we try to help other parent's alleviate the clutter in their own homes. I know my kids do not need any more super bouncy balls, plastic spider rings, whistles, silly straws or tiny yo-yos that I refuse to put those items in gift bags for other kids. Maybe as parents we should be more practical with the gift bag party favors. Maybe we can replace the small trinkets with items like shoe laces, band aids, sun screen or safety pins. You know the things that you never have around the house when you need them. That way when these items are strewn all over the living room floor and shoe lace breaks...we will know we can find a pair under the couch cushion.
Do we even need gift bags at all?
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
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6 comments:
I can't wait until the kids come and visit work!!!!
Try filling 200 PEZ for a wedding. Worst idea I ever had
My husband and I feel the same way about gift bags. That's why we make a point of giving a "gift" that is more substantive that the junk most people give (and we don't give candy). When my son was little, we gave out matchbox cars. The girls get something girly--polly pockets or something similar. I dread bringing home the bag o' junk--it always ends up in the trash anyway.
I'm with you on the Pez thing. However, the good news is that once you have one child old enough, that kid can be the Pez loader. That's how we roll here.
On the gift bag thing - ugh. Because I've got all girls, mine come home with lipstick, nailpolish and worse - Glitter Glue. I hate that stuff. The make up is bad, the craft stuff is awful. I have not a single crafty bone in my body, so when my girls come home with a bracelet making kit requiring a PhD is jewelry making and metalwork, I cringe. It inevitably ends with a discussion about why Ella's mom is so much better at crafts. She's awesome.
PEZ, Idon't mind but I'm so with you on the gift bag thing. I don't give them out at my kids' parties. If I don't want to get it, I'm not giving it out.
I'm with you on the Pez dispensers. They are the worst!
I also did something similar to "Me" in that instead of giving a bag of junk, we gave each kid a matchbox car at the end of one of our boys' parties.
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