After stupid kid almost pokes his eye out
Four-year-old Damien Wilbur of 44 Brooklet Drive, New Jersey recently sent mass hysteria rippling through his home state. After receiving an undeservingly large amount of presents for his birthday and sloughing off plastic tub after plastic tub of Hoodsies, Damien slowed down from a game of freeze tag, possibly disoriented by the complicated rules of the game. He turned his drooling chin to the kitchen full of guests and stripped his head of its party hat, ripping the safe, soft pom-pom off the top and flinging it wildly off his smut-soaked fingers to fall among gift wrap and discarded gummy worms.
“I thought maybe he was gonna take the thing apart,” said a haunted Mrs. Main, the mother of one of Damien’s party guests. “He just had this vacant look in his eyes like he might, I don’t know,” she leaned in to whisper, “Dismember the whole cone.”
Still, none of the witnesses was prepared for the act of violence that followed. After what felt like several long seconds of Damien standing there, mouth agape, he wielded the hat up with driving force, bumping the paper tip into his eye and consequently dissolving into sobs, dropping the weapon and stumbling away. Witnesses recall this only in short bursts, many of them having fainted, others rushing to cover their own children’s eyes. Damien’s mother refused to come out of her house for comment, though many witnesses recall her becoming catatonic, shrinking down against the kitchen island.
Damien has not suffered any serious harm from the incident but fear about the influence of such dangerous behavior has spread quickly. Several of the mothers brought the case to local court and have now banned party hats (even blunt ones, lest they be sharpened or cut with safety scissors) from party supply stores throughout the state.
Still, no motive has been presented yet that explains what kind of deranged person would feel so tempted and mesmerized by the bright colors of a party hat that they’d bring it so dangerously close to their eye. Doctors are baffled that anyone could lack the fine motor skills needed to bring the cone close enough to see without maiming themselves. It’s worth noting that police are not yet certain whether Damien was under the influence, and the possibility of drug use is being strongly investigated.
A group of senior citizens provide an alternate theory. The group worries that this was all some pre-constructed ploy, that Damien’s stupidity was just a cover for premeditated manipulation.
“Somehow, he knew,” said 70-year-old knitting club president Annie Holmes. “He knew that many of us don’t have many birthdays left. He’s using our fear of mortality against us. If he can take the joy out of the few birthdays we have left, there’s no telling what he can get us to do. It’s all too bleak, I just can’t think about it.”
Whatever the reason, concerned parents recommend a cancellation of all birthday parties in the near future until we can understand what it is about birthdays that drives people so helplessly out of control. All of Damien’s friends, siblings, and classmates’ families have set an example by resolving to never again celebrate their children’s birthdays.
If anyone does plan to celebrate in the future, many leaders in the rising anti-birthday movement recommend that the actual celebrant abstain from attending the event, in order to keep things from getting out of hand on their “special day”. All groups hope that as they move forward from this, they can begin teaching children that the day of their birth is as worthless as any other day of the year, thereby destroying any power previously generated from their inflamed sense of self-importance.
Discreet collection groups will come around to select communities this Thursday to pick up any candles, party hats, birth certificates, and other dangerous birthday memorabilia you might be too embarrassed to put out with your usual rubbish.
Isabel Murray is a third-year writing major who recently slipped on a pile of confetti. Reach them at [email protected].