One night at Mabel's house:
Mabel: Hey! You know what would be cool?
Belinda: What?
Mabel: We should have a Pinterest Party!
Me: (Silently. In my own head, while remembering Katie's fifth birthday party planning.) Crapazoidal.....
Belinda: (Excitedly, because that's how Belinda rolls.) AWESOME! That'd be so fun! I found this really cool pin with tennis balls!
Me: (Silently. In my own head.) Crap-a-zoidal....
Mabel: (Excitedly planning, because that's how Mabel rolls.) Everyone could bring some project they found on Pinterest and we could do them!
Me: (Closing my eyes and willing myself invisible, like Ellie does when she doesn't want to do something.)
Mabel: (Grabbing her phone to show something to Belinda.) We could make our own dishwasher detergent!
Me: (Chanting silently. In my own head. Sitting very still with my eyes glued shut.) I'm invisible...I'm invisible...I'm invisible...
Mabel: Martha! This is going to be fun! You're coming. Right? (Which she probably said with her own version of "don't-you-dare-touch-my-coffee-stare." But I didn't see it. Because I was invisible.)
Me: (Silently. In my own head. But very loudly.) CRAP-A-ZOIDAL!!!! I was supposed to be invisible! (Out loud. In my curmudgeon voice, because that's how I roll.) Only if you guys call it a PinINterest Party.
Mable and Belinda: (without a second thought) OK! (Then they high fived each other.)
Me: (Muttering, under my breath, curmudgeonally.) Crapazoidal....
And that's how I found myself, just hours before the party, trolling PinINterest for something other than "Birthday Parties for Lazy People".
But first, a touching back story:
See, I had a grandpa and he was pretty cool. He gave scratchedy mustache kisses and hugs that seemed to always smell of pipe smoke even decades after I last saw him smoke a pipe. He told me I was beautiful, which, especially, as a scrawny and horse toothed thirteen year old, I needed to hear and didn't want to disbelieve. And, sometime, after he retired, he bought a computer. Grandpa used his computer to research things like genealogy, surf the internet, connect with near and distant relatives and old and new friends all around the world, and send emails. You know the ones. The ones with a bunch of forwards on them. One's that had amazing pictures of structures made completely out of oranges, or cats sleeping in weird places, or heart wrenching stories of penniless mothers doing their grocery shopping, or close up photos of the Blue Angels flying formations, or useful stuff like how you can open up pesky plastic packages with a can opener. He sent so many that I eventually had to make a mailbox just for him so I didn't misplace any of my other emails in the deluge. But then, Grandpa passed away, and after my uncle sent one last email from his account letting everyone in Grandpa's inbox know that his email address was now inactive, I thought about emptying the inbox, but, never managed it. Because I missed my grandpa.
End of touching back story.
A few years have passed, and it's hours before the PinINterest Party and there I am desperately scrolling through all the pretty pictures on PinINterest trying to find something to bring to Mabel and Belinda's party other than a recipe for making my own dishwasher detergent when I got the strangest sense of deja-vu. Because, dude, I had just seen a picture of a cat sleeping on a dog's head. And a plane! And! And! A useful tip about how to open up all those pesky plastic packages with a can opener! Dude. I had seen this stuff before. In an email. From my grandpa.
And that's when I realized:
PinINterest isn't just for overly extravagant children's parties anymore, it's also the place all those old forwarded emails have gone to die.
And by die, I mean, they went to pretty pretty internet heaven, filled with recipes of caramel brownies, houses with water slides instead of staircases, huge libraries with cozy reading nooks, fuzzy knitted sweaters and running workouts... just like real heaven*!
So. I did it. I joined PinINterest. Because it's the newest coolest whippest thing out there on the world wide web. Join me? Please? I have a great recipe for dishwasher detergent!
*OK, sure, I don't actually know if heaven has a water slide, but, come on, God is awesome and so are water slides, you do the math.
