Afrienders Assemble!

A few months ago, the topic of Elijah’s birthday party came up at the dinner table. Where to go? What to do? Hibachi restaurant? The salt would kill me. Medieval Times? The dorkiness would kill me. Hire a clown? The clown would most likely kill us all.

Eli decided on taking a few friends to see the new Avengers movie. Seemed like a choice everyone could get behind. Did I manipulate him into this choice? Since I am the sole author of HamannEggs, the answer is no.

The day of the party came, and Diana announced that instead of wrangling 12 tweens, she would be staying home to order pizza. I congratulated her on her ability to get out of stuff and recruited my brother to take her place.

My mission was the usual when interacting with Eli’s friends: be the coolest, raddest, phattest dad ever. I turned my dad joke dial all the way to eleven. When each kid showed up at our door, I serenaded them from the piano with a custom song based on their name. I gave out copious high fives. I swore, because cool dads swear.

Eli pulled me into the dining room and asked me to knock it off.

Fine. I took the opportunity to ask him if any of his friends would be mad if I had a beer during the movie. He said if it would shut me up, I could drink 10 beers. BTW, I did not drink 10 beers.

Steve and I carted the kids to the theatre and made our way to the concessions stand. I gathered everyone together and said, “Okay. Let’s try not to bankrupt rad dad. Maybe you could all pair up and then you can have one popcorn to share. Sharing is rad, right?”

The scene immediately devolved into tween social complexity the likes of which I had never seen. Who was friends enough to share, but not boyfriend/girlfriend share? Were they best friends or second best friends? What if you wanted to sit next to someone but not share popcorn? What if you had braces and can’t eat popcorn but still wanted to sit next to someone? I stared longingly at the beer stand.

I finally just said forget it. Everyone gets their own snacks and drinks. Go nuts. Who needs to save for college, anyway? The cashiers gathered around to see the total bill, which was staggering. But your son only turns twelve once.

We made our way to our seats, which thankfully were assigned. But they were in two rows, which caused its own tween complexity. I eventually snapped at Eli in front of his friends, which ruined all the dad-radness I had built up over the last few hours.

The movie was great and fun and the kids had a good time. I managed to regain some of my dad-radness on the ride home by singing along off key to the radio.