Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 8, JUNE 15, 2009, THE ISLANDER
Dam Barry
The Perils of Pinatas
of the loot. If you ask me, this is just
plain wrong, and something needs
to be done about it, just as soon as
we get the situation squared away
in Iraq.
This classic DAVE BARRY column
was originally published Oct. 26,
2003. (C) 2009 The Miami Herald.
Dist. by Tribune Media Services.
Dave Barry is a humor columnist
for the Miami Herald. Write to him
do Tropic Magazine, The Miami
Herald, One Herald Plaza, Miami FL
33132) □
Iraqi weapons of mass destruc
tion: Did they, in fact, exist? If so,
will they ever be found?
Beats me. Now that I've cleared
that up, I'd like to devote what
little space I have left to the issue of
pinata safety.
A pinata is a festive party item,
usually shaped like a classic fairy
tale character such as Spider-Man;
it is used to traumatize children at
birthday parties. This has become
very popular: As the parent of a 3-
year-old, I attend approximately 84
birthday parties per weekend, and
every one has a pinata, as well as
(this is federal law) a clown.
In fact, it was a clown at a recent
party who got me thinking about
pinata safety. She had been clown
ing professionally for 20 years, which
is a long time—maybe too long—to
be spending every weekend wear
ing comical pants and a scratchy
wig, endlessly twisting balloons into
shapes for children who, over the
years, have become harder to please,
who aren't satisfied with your clas
sic balloon dog or balloon sword, no,
these kids want balloon versions of
every licensed character that comes
along—they want Nemo, they want
Lilo, they want STITCH for god-
sakes, and when you try to warn
them—when you say, "Don't take the
balloon outside! You'll pop it!"—they
go outside anyway and . . . POP, now
they're crying, and they want you
to make Stitch AGAIN, and . . . and
that's pretty much how this clown
sounded. Her technique for creating
a magical mood for the children was
to bark things like, "Be careful on
those chairs! You'll fall over back
ward and crack your head!"
So anyway, I was with my daugh
ter, who was waiting, a tad appre
hensively, for Grumpy the Clown
to paint her face, and some dads
were trying to hang the pinata—a
Buzz Lightyear model—from a near
by tree. Buzz was smiling brightly,
not realizing that children would
soon be beating him with a stick.
That's what children do with pina
tas. And the thing is, the children
become increasingly violent, because
pinatas—ask any parent—are almost
impossible to break open. For some
reason, they are built to withstand
a nuclear attack. We should get the
pinata manufacturers to make cars;
nobody would ever be hurt in an
accident again.
But getting back to the party,
Grumpy the Clown was recalling the
first birthday party she worked:
"They had a pinata, and it fell
down and hit the birthday boy and
gave him a big cut over his eye.
By Dave Barry
There was blood everywhere. We
were singing 'Happy Birthday' and
he was on his way to the emergency
room."
This reminded another parent of
a party where there was no tree
they could hang the pinata from, so
he volunteered to hold the pinata,
dangling it from a string in his hand,
and needless to say the birthday boy,
who was blindfolded, nailed him in
the ribs with the stick.
"It hurt to breathe for a week," he
said.
This is why many parents go for
the "safety" pinata, which has a trap
door with strings hanging down. The
children grab the strings, and on the
count of three they all give a yank,
and . . . nothing happens! Because
this type of pinata is also virtually
impregnable. The Pinata Security
Task Force has seen to that.
So a parent has to yank the trap
door open, releasing a cascade of
candy and cheesy toys. This is when
things get really violent, as the chil
dren—who own literally billions of
much nicer toys—dive to the ground
in a life-or-death struggle for items
they will immediately lose.
This struggle is especially brutal
for the smaller children, because
there's always one unusually large
male child—a child who drove him
self to the birthday party; a child
under contract to the Pittsburgh
Steelers-who winds up with most
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Movie Night
at the Casino
.SponsorLedibyitiTiTSt^Simons Library League
No Man’s Land
Wednesday,
June 17
7 p.m.
Casino Theater
"No Man's Land." Bosnia and Herzegovina,
1991. This anti-war film plays out on the bloody
battlefields of Bosnia, as two enemy soldiers,
face-to-face in the no man's land between their
respective lines, hold each other at bay white
they await outside intervention. In Croatian
with English subtitles; 98 minutes; Rated R.
Upcoming Movies and Events Include:
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Movies are free, but contributions are appreciated.
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