Key to the door

OPINION: So I'm going to a 21st this weekend. My little second-cousin-niece thing person – not so little any more, obviously – is having a classic hall party and I get to go, writes Sarah McCarthy in this week's Uptown Girl.

At first I was mega-excited and thought about hanging out with all of her girlfriends and dancing the Macarena and having a scull of some RTD or a Miami Wine Cooler.

I honestly can't remember the last time I went to a 21st – probably around the time I was 21 and people were having parties all over the place.

My favourite 21sts were the random ones – where you'd managed to score an invite to someone's 21st that you hardly knew and were free to avail yourself of the booze and food without having to make conversation with the birthday person's crusty grandparents and now-married and slightly scary older siblings who still thought of you as a 12-year-old and were therefore shocked to see you do a keg stand. And were likely to tell your own mum.

Or worse, your own mum was actually there, frowning every time you went anywhere near the bar and trying to make you eat a sandwich, saying "You need to put a lining on your stomach!"

In fact, now I remember the last 21st I went to – it was another cousin's, in Nelson, about 11 years ago. Because of the high whanau quota at the party (everyone bar Grandma, I think) we'd totally behaved ourselves all evening, but as the guests were starting to drift away in little clumps she and I and a friend of her brother decided to play some kind of drinking game involving jugs of beer. We played a few rounds before she managed to be very sick on the table and got some on her dress. Then she went tearfully to her mother, saying, "Mum, I was sick on myself". Memories, eh?

So I was thinking all this as I planned what to wear to Tash's – and it was then that I realised the awful truth. I was now in the league of crusty granny and boring aunty. When I walk in I will be handed a plate of sandwiches and a glass of sherry and then led to a corner table where the rest of the whanau will sit, relegated, eyeing the young'uns with jealousy and trying to make themselves feel less redundant by telling stories of their own glory days and misting up during the speeches.

I will snag all of her old friends and ask them what they are up to and trap them in a long, smug-married conversation while their eyes dart nervously from side to side and they take frantic swigs of wine, mouthing "Help Me" to their friends over my shoulder. Mr mr and I will hit the dance floor at about 11.30 after haranguing the music-master to put on some Elton John, and do some kind of wobbly slightly disturbing salsa dancing. Ah, the circle of life.

("Sister", "Laser" and Eyes For Christmas, Tash. Don't be facetious.)

» Sarah McCarthy is a Southland Times staff member.

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