A Social Snafu Or Two

Recently, I was invited to a Christmas party through "Evite".

The host had a list of 200 people. I didn't respond right away. Everyday for about a week, I checked to see who had sent back RSVPs. By the end of the week only 12 people had responded. Finally, I decided I was going to be a good sport about it and respond too. When I tried to respond, I was given a message that I had been "un-invited" to the party. It said that my name had been removed from the list of invitees and, if I wanted any further information on said event, I would have to take it up with the host.

Well, at first I was livid! Not only at the "host" but at the people at "Evite" for being so insensitive. If someone removes a person from an invite list, that person shouldn't get an e-mail telling them that they have been un-invited... that's just socially inept! Of course, this saves the "host" from the unenviable task of having to tell someone that "I don't really want you at my event" to their face, which makes for an understandabley awkward situation.

I was angry at the "host" at first because I felt this person was taking the cowards way out, especially since they work in my building and I see them everyday and on this particular day, this person smiled in my face like nothing was up. I don't think they knew that I had gotten this particular e-mail.

I talked to a number of people about this and they were equally as shocked as I was about the entire thing with Evite. They had some choice words for the host too, but that was neither here nor there. I probably cost this person a couple of heads at this party because, you see, the people I told were also on the list and after talking to me, they responded back saying that they weren't coming. (It doesn't pay to screw with me... I'll find someway to get at you.)

After I got over my initial anger, which took about two weeks, I sat down and thought about how funny the entire thing was. I know that if someone else had told me that something like this happened to them, I would have been laughing. I have always said that if you can't laugh at yourself, at your own foibles, then you have no business laughing at someone else. I'm not even mad anymore. I find myself laughing even more everytime I think about it.

There was another time that I was thrown out of a party but, it was a somewhat different situation. I was 11 years old and I was invited to this girl's birthday party at my school. It is customary to bring a gift to someone's birthday party and my mother told me that she was going to pick up a gift for me to take to the party. For some reason that I can't explain now, I was listening to this guy named Bruce (who was a bit older than me) who told me that I was "too old to be letting my mom buy me gifts to take to a girl's party" and that I should "handle that myself". So, I asked him what he thought I should get. Big mistake! As it turned out, Bruce was an idiot but, I couldn't spot them then like I can now. I've had a lifetime to know what they look and sound like.

There used to be a store on the corner of 52nd & Market Streets in West Philadelphia called "John's Bargain Store." It was for poor, down on their luck people and I think that everything in there was under ten dollars. They had a big sign on the window that read... "Ladies Panties - Five for five dollars." Bruce pointed at the sign and told me... "There you go. You've got five bucks. Buy a pack of those... that let's her know that you're serious." I should have asked, "Serious about what?" But, I was 11 years old... it was 1970... and it wasn't like it is today. Mind you, this was for someone turning 11 years old, not 21 years old. I don't know what I was thinking either. Like an idiot, I bought a bag of the "one size fit all" panties from John's Bargain Store. I didn't even wrap it. I put it in a brown paper bag, bought a cheap birthday card from the "Five and Dime" (Woolworth, for anyone born after the Carter administration (Jimmy's, not Shawn's) and marched to the party.

Well, upon seeing my "present", the other children burst into gales of laughter and the girl's father asked me to leave the party. If I had been older, he may have gotten violent. I was stunned to say the least. When I got home and told my grandmother and my uncle what happened, they laughed too but they understood. My grandmother said... "Your Mother said she was coming by here after work with the present. Why did you go there and where did you get the idea to go and buy something like that?"

When I told her, she shook her head. "You can't be listening to those guys on the corner... they don't know no more than you do. In fact, from the sounds of it, they know even less", she said (but, still laughing). My mother took me around to the house and gave the girl the present that she and my Aunt Jean had picked out... and they pretty much straightened everything out with the girl's parents. I was told that I could come back in but, I didn't. After I had been laughed at and then thrown out, there was no way I was going back into that party. My mother didn't force me but she did give me a lecture about listening to "jitterbugs" (her word for every bad Black man on the street) instead of listening to "your people" (meaning the family).

So, thanks to my always supportive family who did the best they could to shield not just me but all of us neices and nephews from the harsh reality and cruelties of the world, I was able to move on and move past that social snafu. There would be more and while they were all alive, no matter what I did (and I was always doing something stupid), someone was always there with a wise word and a soothing solution.

That's why the later social snafu didn't break me. I've been through a lifetime of these situations. The one thing that makes a hater burn with rage is when they can't phase you... when they've done something to get under your skin and you're laughing at them. "Living well is truly the best revenge." I eat pretty good and not one meal is paid for or cooked by any of my detractors. My grandmother said it best, years before Jay-Z and Barack Obama made it a catch phrase...

"Baby, you gotta brush that kind of dirt off your shoulders."