yes, it’s 10 pm and i still haven’t written my sandwich party post yet. yes, i slept until noon and then took a three hour nap around 8. and yes, when i finally woke up i ate half a casserole dish of cheesy artichoke dip for dinner. it’s been a weird day, and i’m not even hung over! (no seriously, i swear). the sandwich party was a balls out success, but it sucked out my life force and i’ve been completely deflated all day.
flash back to friday afternoon. after the power outage fiasco, the boyfriend picked me up at the starbucks around 4ish, and it was straight to the walmart, target, whole foods, liquor store and shaw’s for spending way too much money. arnold sandiwch thins had given me 5 $4/1 coupons, and the bread was only $2.50, so i got an extra $7.50 worth of savings out of the deal. too bad it wasn’t like an extra $150. um, parties are expensive. and for a girl like me who wants everything to be beautiful and delicious (fuck the cost!), it’s impossible to just open a couple bags of ruffles and call it good. i provided 5 varieties of sliced cheese, 4 kinds of wine, bermudan ginger beer, 42 ounces of swedish fish, and enough beer & vodka to take down a dorm full of freshman on thirsty thursday.
then, i stayed up until 3 am freaking out about the fact that i had never thrown a party before. that’s right, i completely lied to house party about my party throwing experience/ability. i’d had people over to watch movies, but always in a very non-committal way (i’m gonna watch showgirls on tuesday, show up if you want in). oh, and there was that one time i threw a wedding (oops)… but people have to come to those. the pitiful truth is that i was horribly embarrassingly unpopular in grade school. so much so that i told my parents that i didn’t like birthday parties- so i wouldn’t have to bear the humiliation of no one showing up. even though i was lucky enough to have that unpopularity be fairly short lived (by 8th grade i was pretty much in the clear), the fear of having a loser party has stuck with me for the remainder of my life. (i told you it was pitiful!)
flash forward to yesterday morning. asleep by 3 am, up by 8:30 to clean my shit-tasticly messy apartment. in a way, it was a good way to distract myself from the party anxiety. although it also made me into a gigantic bitch, cracking the whip on my poor boyfriend all afternoon (i’m sorry baby!!). needless to say, our apartment was spotless by 7:15- just in time for three of my very amazing friends to arrive to help talk me off the ledge. they set to work cutting up vegetables, pouring chips into bowls, and calling friends to pressure them into coming. and they came. 20ish people actually showed up to my house for a SANDWICH PARTY. and appeared to have a good time. some notable moments:
1. i was able to serve 2 people their very first moxie.
2. as it turns out, arnold sandwich thins are actually pretty tasty. we made horseradish cheddar grilled cheese in a panini press (thanks kat!), fluffernutters, and tiny pizzas. (and no, i promise they didn’t even pay me to say that- i wish!)
3. about 1/2 the guests got really sucked in by “logan’s run“, and stayed to watch all 2 fabulous hours.
4. despite the utter lameness of the swag (grocery lists with “arnold sandwich thins” already written on the first line?!), people mercifully still took it home.
5. a slight misunderstanding of the party concept involved one guest showing up with 10 fast food hamburgers. which was great, because i accidentally forgot to tell people that it was BYOM (bring your own meat). sorry guys! (and thank you teddy!)
6. i was so busy workin the room and making sure everyone had a sandwich in their hand that i completely forgot to get drunk.
what i learned is that being a hostess is hard work, and after the last guests finally wandered out around 1 am, i collapsed on the couch with a searing headache (i had also forgotten to drink any water during day and had crazy dehydration). 2 advil and 2 pints of ice water later, i crawled up the stairs and collapsed for a 10 hour slumber.
i’m sort of proud that i forced myself into getting over my loser party fear, and even more so for not actually having a loser party. that said, would i recommend house party to others? most definitely not.
1. their website blew and was difficult to navigate both for me and my guests.
2. the stupid evite i sent out via their website looked so much like spam that nobody RSVPed and i eventually had to resort to facebook. (on the upside, they did not edit out the copious amount of profanity i used both in my invite and on my party page).
3. the swag was awful, and $20 wasn’t nearly enough for decent sandwich fixins.
4. i’m convinced that some people didn’t come because they thought it was like a tupperware party and that they might be pressured into buying something.
5. 2 days after i was accepted, they started sending me nasty emails about how i hadn’t invited people to my party yet (which made me fear for my kneecaps).
6. i’m fairly certain that there’s going to be an equally scary/annoying follow-up phase where i and my guests will be harassed for feedback about the party. i may or may not choose to completely ignore this phase.
basically, unless you completely love the product, and you know your friends will too… not really worth it. now that i’ve conquered my fear, i may choose throw another party someday. but house party as an organization can GO SCREW.
broke 207 