We’ve got another one!!
Guest of Honor
Thanks to our St. Patty’s Day parade, or the rumor that we have more bars per capita than any other city in the country, we may have a slight reputation as a party town. But it’s the weekends in the summer, when Hoboken becomes a little bit of a ghost town that I truly anticipate. When the beachgoers flee the town for the weekends, the ones left are free to celebrate whatever occasion, however we fancy.
The night before a summer soiree that my roommates and I were hosting, my friend and roommate, Rachael, were finishing the last of our beers to head on home. It had started to rain, so we reluctantly got out the umbrellas and set out on our trek back to Hoboken.
We were just about to turn the corner onto Christopher St. when Rachael stopped dead in her tracks, gasped, and sprinted off, jumping in between puddles in the opposite direction, up Hudson St. from where we just came.
After watching her run frantically up the street, I realized what had happened—she had forgotten her Party City shopping bag at the bar.
You may be asking, what would leave us so upset to have left a Party City bag at a bar, but for us, this was no other impulsive purchase. When it comes to hosting a party in Hoboken, it’s serious business. I sum it up as: round here, the money we save in rent is only more to splurge in entertaining.
We had decided to cheer Rachael’s move from the city to “The Boken” with a get-together, and a few days before the date, we felt that colorful streamers of tiki faces and twinkle lights seemed appropriate. A trip to Party City was in order.
The picture I wish I could have submitted with my column!!
Quite the exercise in willpower, though we were able to pass on bouncing palm tree headbands, we came across an inflatable tiki god cooler that had a lasting impression on us. Not only was there an opening in his face so you can access beverages through his mouth, but he was also four feet tall. And had a grass skirt.
Though we somehow pried ourselves away and left the Party City without him, Rachael had already decided that she and him were meant to be, and so she purchased him on her lunch break that Friday. When I met her at the bar after work, he was waiting with her.
Tiki Tim, who Rachael successfully retrieved, became our guest of honor, and he now lives in the alcove where our washer and dryer stand. Sure, now it seems like a silly purchase, but that’s what hosting a summer party in Hoboken will do to you—get you all hot and bothered about buying toys from a Party City. When you can manage to pull together some of your best friends, inflatable or otherwise, on a gorgeous summer evening when the town is yours, sometimes, there is no better way to show your excitement than to blow your paycheck in the name of fun.
Confessions Of A Splenda Stealer 