Color me annoyed

I'm going to go ahead and admit it right now. This post is going to be petty and bitchy.

Yesterday was the baby shower for one of the Neighborhood Badasses. As a little backstory, she is one of the teachers at The World's Most Expensive Preschool and happens to be one of the fringe members of the NB's even though she doesn't actually live here in the neighborhood. But whatever. And for the purpose of this post, I'm going to call her Candy.

Candy is definitely not one of my favorite members of the group for a multitude of reasons, the biggest one being that I find her teaching style and her dealings with the parents to be highly unprofessional. Actually, when we were given the choice of teachers this year, we were the ONLY of the BA's to request a different teacher which I'm sure raised a few eyebrows.

So at the end of last summer, Heather was pregnant so Candy and Jaye decided to throw a baby shower for her. We got invitations, it was held at the golf club, and was very nice. Come to find out later, Candy skipped out on her half of the bill for the shower leaving Jaye hung out to dry for the entire thing. That alone left a bad taste in my mouth.

Then, there was the whole Neighborhood Badass dinner at Fleming's where we ended up being significantly short when it came time to ante up the bill. And there is very little doubt in my mind that it was Candy and her husband that shorted us. Again, not a good moment.

Add to this the fact that when Monkey Man got that nasty staph infection on his tonsils last October, her own kid (who is in her class against school policy but again, whatever) ended up coincidentally having a staph infection on his arm. So even though her doctor and the health department told her that her kid didn't catch it from Monkey Man, she spread the rumor around school that she suspected that it was exactly what happened. Of course, anyone with a lick of sense (which would be EVERYONE but her) knew it wasn't possible or true, so she was reduced to a laughingstock. I was pissed, but figured hey - it's stressful, she's obviously not educated about these types of infections, and no one believed her anyway, so...bah. No point in making a stink about it.

About a month and a half ago, Heather e-mailed me that they wanted to do a baby shower for Candy since she is due in July. I was secretly hoping that they wouldn't end up doing it (mostly because everyone had been bitching about her pilching out on Heather's shower). And then I never heard another word about it.

Until last Wednesday. I get this semi-bitchy e-mail from Heather asking if I'm coming to the shower. I reply back: "I didn't get an invitation - where is it, when, what time?" Oh, it's SUNDAY at 11 AM over at this restaurant on the lake. Great. So I email back that yes, I will be there. And I'm irritated - where the hell was my invitation? How was I supposed to RSVP for a party that I had no idea was actually going to happen?

Sunday rolled around and it was freaking pouring rain. I mean, buckets. I tried to think of every excuse in the book to get out of going, but in good conscience no matter how much I was dreading it I knew I had given my words and I was going to go come hell or high water (no pun intended). So I sloshed everything to the car, drove in the driving rain over to the restaurant, and arrived about 10 minutes before the shower was due to start.

So when I got to the upstairs "private" area, I found Heather and Jaye standing there visibly stressing out, with a waitress struggling to move tables around. Nothing was ready. Not a thing. This happened at the last shower that I went to, but Heather is by nature a very flighty person and Jaye has serious pregnancy brain so I didn't think much about it. I tried to help get things moved around and people started trickling in and they pitched in too.

At this point, Heather and Jaye realize that they haven't planned a thing for table decorations. So Heather pulls out this manila folder with all of the restaurant confirmations in it and hands me this plastic envelope.

Which is full of invitations.

She wanted to use those for decorations. So I offered to put them out just for my own evil curiosity - the order form in the envelope stated that they had ordered 20 invitations. Thirteen were still in the bag. "How many people are coming today?" I asked brightly. "Sixteen not including Candy," Jaye replied. I counted thirteen invitations left in the bag.

Um, okay....so you have twenty invitations, you have sixteen people invited, and yet there are thirteen invitations left in the bag. So who exactly made the cut to get an actual invitation? Now I really started to wonder what the fuck was going on.

The official start time for the shower was 11 AM. Candy finally came rolling in at 11:30. This is like the third or fourth shower I've been to in the last year where the honoree is anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour late. Am I totally nuts to think that this is like the rudest thing ever? I don't get it!

So as the shower went on, people kept drifting in. Most had no idea what the exact start time of the shower was. Um, maybe because they didn't actually get an invitation? Duh. The last one came rolling in at 12:30, because she thought the shower started then. Oops.

Then it was time for "brunch". Apparently, our hosts paid for the food but not for any drinks. I ended up having a mimosa which cost me $10 without any tip. I could have totally racked up covertly making mimosas in the ladies' room and charging $5 each for them.

So by the time I schlepped home in the rain, I was more than irritated:

*I am irritated when people throw parties and then expect the guests to pay without any warning. For God's sakes, at least mention when the people RSVP that you are buying food but booze isn't included, that way people bring money!

*I am irritated when people don't extend proper invitations and then get pissy when you don't RSVP...RSVP to what? The telepathic invitation? Hell, even an e-vite is better than nothing. As a matter of fact, e-vites are great.

*I am irritated when the honorees are up to an hour late for the party being thrown for them - and with no real reason (like my car broke down, my cat died, whatever). What ever happened to manners, people?

At this point, I don't even want a fucking thank you note. I just want to be left out of the loop for the next Badass function. Either that, or a heads-up to bring my own fucking booze next time. Geez.