Image Credit: Compilation/Jennifer Stahn

I’ve been invited to a party. I don’t like parties. No one likes parties.

Secretly we’d all rather be sitting quietly at home with a glass of Shiraz and Margaret Atwood. But instead we congregate in someone’s ugly kitchen and pretend we’re having fun.

It won’t be fun. It will be hell.

There will be music. The host will have asked his teenage son to create an 'appropriate' playing list on his e-pod, which will consist of a loud rappist swearing unceasingly and a bass noise that makes the over-priced shaker cabinets, well, shake. The son will somehow believe this is appropriate for a generation which has already lost much of its hearing and thinks a “ho” is something you weed the garden with.

A person of the opposite sex will attempt to engage me in conversation. I will see her lips moving and nod and smile. Occasionally I will laugh at what I assume to be suitable junctures. She will look offended and walk away. Eventually the hostess will tire of blushing at the expletives and the host will turn off the e-pod and treat us instead to his record collection which seems to consist entirely of The Human League.

Now we can hear ourselves, the husband of the person of the opposite sex will ask me why I thought it considerate to laugh like an imbecile while she was describing the sudden and violent death of her dog.

Later, there will be drunks. Drunks are stupid. They mumble and their feet point in different directions. Sometimes they vomit. Nice drunks burp and fall asleep at your feet. Nasty drunks think you’ve stolen their shoes and want to rip your head off. There is no way of telling which is which until it’s too late. One of the drunks will be taking sloppy swigs from the bottle of 2005 Merlot I brought. The only thing left for me to drink will be something in a flowery bottle with a cutesy nonsense name like “Tangled Harmony”. It will taste of bitumen and soap.

In the worst case scenario, there will be dancing. No one over the age of 30 should attempt dancing unless they have been properly trained and tested. People of my advancing years have trouble moving their feet at all, never mind in time to The Human League. We shall end up with a room full of wrinklies bobbing about like those gigantic inflatable characters you see outside motor car dealers and Hot Tub Blowouts (I have no idea what a Hot Tub Blowout is but it sounds rather unpleasant.)

It will be hell, but I shall go. It would be rude not to.

— Grumpy Old Git prefers his rappers expletive-free, scratch-free, auto tune-free, bass-free and accompanied by an orchestra.

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