Blog-iary: Dinner Party?
"So, do you have any questions?" I asked
"I don't have any. Do you have any Sadie?" Page
replied.
"Only one actually. So you promised Dan you would help him
become popular and the whole concert thing was the first step. After this, what
was the next step you had to do?" Sadie asked.
"I decided the first thing Dan needs to learn was how to be
social. So, that Friday evening, I can up with the idea of a potluck to make
Dan comfortable talking to strangers. And so, the events in the next story happened."
I answered.
"Could you kindly read it?" Page asked.
"Sure!” I flipped to the next story.
“August 31st, 2014, Hosting a Potluck… From the looks of it, this has been a busy week. It doesn’t
surprise me since it’s the first time in a while I’ve had a friend to occupy my
time. (Or should I say, friends)…”
August 31st, 2014
Hosting a Potluck
From the looks of it, this has been a busy week. It doesn’t surprise me since it’s the first time in a while I’ve had a friend to occupy my time (Or should I say, friends). It was around midnight on Friday when I got a text from Danny.
I was too exhausted to protest, so I just replied with ok and after taking a look at it, I fell asleep. It wasn’t until I woke up the next morning that I realized what I had said. As any regular person would react, I proceeded to scream inside. A bit before creating the blog, I had to host a Halloween party at my house and it was a freaking disaster. Everyone was bored and by the end, everyone was really unsatisfied. I couldn’t enjoy the party at all as well either. This was because I had to get this and that and deal with problem after problem. After that traumatic experience, I made sure I’d never host a party for my friends. So, immediately, I called Danny and tried talking him into not letting me host.
“Hey, Danny!” I said.
“Ello governor, what’s up?”Danny said.
“Oh, nothing, it’s just that I sort of need a favor.” Dan said.
“Ok, what’s your favor?” Danny asked.
“Do you think you could may-be try getting someone else to do the dinner potluck?” I asked.
“Sorry, can’t do that. Everyone already knows where to go to plus I don’t know anyone else that could have it at their house.” he said.
“Ugh! Fine, I’ll try asking my parents if they’ll let me have the potluck.” I said.
“Thanks! I can help you with getting ready if you need it.” Danny said.
“Ok, I think I’m going to need as much help as possible.” I said.
“See you at noon.” He miserably said, hanging up the phone.
It was 100% final. I had no way of wiggling my way out of hosting the party. I headed towards the kitchen. Both of my parents were sitting at the table. They were drinking their daily cup of joe (aka chocolate milk with cream) and reading news articles. They read articles most likely covering television. Specifically, anything about animated programming since they’re huge animation buffs. I hesitantly walked towards them, trying to delay their inevitable answer to my question. I slowly walked towards my chair and sat down. “Good morning!” was the only thing I could say with ease. My parents greeted me back.
“Soooooo… I’m wondering… if it would be ok… iff I coould maaaybe have a few friends over?”
“Depends,” my Mom said, taking her eyes off her laptop.
“Would this be a party of some kind?”
“I guess you can say that?” I replied, trying to remember how potlucks and parties function.
“What kind of party is it?”
“It’s a potluck!” I said, semi-enthusiastically, but mostly nervously.
“A potluck?” my Mom said, surprised and a bit more enthusiastic.
“Yeah.”
My Mom sent a look to my Dad for him to step into the conversation.
“A potluck would be great. Why, I remember back in middle school when my friends and I-” he said.
“Calm down now. Save it for the biography,” My mom interrupted. It was her way of saying “Stop your three-hour story about a piece of wood.”
“So, are you are going to need some help or should we go with usual weekend plans?”
“My friend’s already helping me with the potluck.” I said.
“Alright.”
Relieved, I started my morning route.
I was pleasantly surprised by the entire outcome of the whole situation. I was expecting a no or just a laugh at how absurd it would be to have a potluck out of nowhere.
A few hours afterward, my parents had left to continue their weekends. Danny came over and knocked on my door around noon.
“Ello Governor!” he said. He wore the same thing he wore for, what I’m guessing, the entire first week. It was an orange shirt with an arrow pointing to the right. It was from the band Plain Arrows.
“Hey Danny! Is that the same shirt from Friday and Thursday?” I asked.
“Sort of. It’s a different shirt that’s identical to the one I wore yesterday.”
“You have different copies of the same shirt?”
“Yep, I have 30 copies, in fact. I didn’t think it would that surprising since you wear identical hoodies every day. You do have different copies of the same hoodie?”
I glanced at my closet and saw my green Plain Arrows hoodie hanging on a hanger. I awkwardly walked to my closet in a painfully embarrassing manner and closed my closet.
“Yeeeees.” I blatantly lied.
“Dan, you’re a great friend, but to be quite honest, that’s beyond dirty. Do you, at least, change your shoes?”
“Yeaaah.” I nodded my head.
“Oh my! Remind me to never come near your shoes.”
“ANYWAY, ABOUT THAT POTLUCK THING! WHO ARE YOU INVITING? Wait, actually, how many friends do you have?!”
“Just four. Well, sixteen if you count the people you’re not going to meet.”
“Soo, you're new here and it’s only been the first week! How do you have that many friends!’
“Well, back in my day, I was quite a popular person.”
“Danny.”
“Yes.”
“You're my age.”
“And?” he asked
“Your day is my day.”
“Oh, wellll... Speaking of things in our day, back in my day-”
“ANYWAY, WHAT ABOUT THAT POTLUCK! WHAT SHOULD WE DO FIRST?!” I interrupted.
“Hmm, maybe we could get decorations.” he suggested.
“Ok, how should we decorate and where shall we decorate?” I asked
“I don’t know. Why don’t we go to Party City and see what they have.” he replied.
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“TO THE PUBLIC BUS STOP!” he yelled.
While heading to Party City, we talked a bit about how the potluck was going to go. We decided that the potluck should be in my living room since it’s the only place in my house with no personal stuff in it. While at and going to Party City, I kept getting really anxious about the whole thing. I didn’t want things to be like they were before. I thought that if this potluck wasn’t perfect than Danny’s friends wouldn’t like me. If they don’t like me soon they’ll abandon me like the friends I had last year. Any chances of me having friends laid on this potluck. So, while Danny and I were looking for the right things to use for the potluck, I was extremely particular about choosing themes. After a bunch of my rejections, Danny said something about it.
“Dan, we’ve been here for about half an hour! You’ve already rejected every single thing in the store.”
“Well, it’s just that I don’t think your friends are going to like them.” I replied.
“Dan,” he said in a calm tone.
“Yes?” I asked, he came close to me. He put his hands on my shoulder and looked at me right in the eyes.
“It doesn’t matter if they’ll like the decorum or not. They’re most likely not going to care about it anyways.”
“I know they’re going to care, though! If everything isn’t just right, they’ll hate the potluck… and me.”
“Dan, we’re teenagers.”
“And?”
“We don’t care about most things. I’m pretty sure the four friends I‘m inviting are only just going to care about two things at that party.”
“And that is?” I asked.
“If the food they brought is ok and what everyone else is going to think about the food they brought.”
“Ok?”
“All anyone is going to care about is what everyone else thinks. So you should stop stressing yourself out. If they hate the potluck, you will have other opportunities to become friends with them.” he said, I smiled.
“Now, what decorations should we get?’
“I think that we should try getting something related to a Plain Arrows.” I suggested.
“Luck album themed?” he added.
“Why not!”
For the next twenty minutes, we gather all the things we needed for decorating. We bought orange and green cups, paper plates, streamers and table cloth. Before we headed to the buses, Danny said he had one more thing to get so I followed him. We went to the nearest mall and got two buckets of ice cream and four boxes of ice cream cones. Once we got to my house, we started putting up all the decorations. After we finished, my self-consciousness crept up on me. I started nitpicking about how the whole placed looked with the decorations. I thought that people were going to hate the whole decorum of the place. Danny said the same thing he said before, but it didn’t work. I kept saying that people were going to not like the party. It got to the point where I started to act paranoid.
“Calm down. Let’s just wait and see how everyone will react ok?” Danny said.
“But-”
“No buts. Now, let’s just wait for everyone to come. Here,” I said, turning on the TV.
“while waiting, we can watch some of Bland-Fect.”
Around six o’clock, two of Danny’s friends came knocking on the door. We headed towards the door to open it.
“Ello governors!” Danny said.
“Ello!” two of the girls said. They went inside.
“So, Dan, this is Jen.” Danny said, pointing towards the girls who was wearing a blue Plain Arrows sweater. Her sweater’s arrow pointed in the same direction as Danny’s. She was close to Danny’s height, but only slightly shorter. Just like Danny, her sweater was two sizes too big for her. She wore navy blue glasses so thick that it would make a hipster blush. Everything she wore was some shade of blue all the way from her Vans to her baby blue hair piece.
“Hi!” she greeted.
“Jen, this is Dan.” Danny said, pointing towards me.
“Hey, nice cake.” I said.
She brought a cake in the shape of her sweater. It, obviously, had a blue color scheme to it except for the cookie in the middle. The cookie resembled my face, but with a cartoonish art style.
“Thanks, Jenny helped make the cookie in the middle.” She said, motioning towards Jenny.
“Howdy!” Jenny said. Like all three of us, she was wearing a Plain Arrows shirt (I guess the band’s super popular). Her shirt’s arrow pointed in the same direction as mine, but her’s was purple. The shirt had the word ‘Misfortune’. While Danny’s had the word ‘Unlucky’, Jen had the word ‘Fortune’ and I had the word ‘Lucky’. Unlike Danny and Jen, her shirt actually fits her like my hoodie did for me. She wore purple Converses and a purple scarf. She looked like she was cosplaying a character from a webcomic I’ve read. Sadly, I can’t quite remember the name of it.
“Hey,” I replied.
“What’s in the hat?” She was holding a top hat that was, of course, purple. A purple plate covered the bottom of the hat.
“It’s the food I’m bringing to the potluck.”
“Ok, but what food is inside it?” I asked.
“The world may never know.” She dramatically said while moving her hands in the air.
“At least for the next few minutes.” Danny added.
The two of them put their potluck stuff on the dish table and proceeded to settle down in the living room. Fifteen minutes later, there was another knock at the door. I went to open the door and Danny followed. There was a guy and a girl out at the door. I recognized the guy at the door. His name was Mike, and he was one of the most popular/well-known guys in the whole school. Unlike most popular guys, he’s tolerable and isn’t an annoying ‘jock’. The girl next to him I couldn’t recognize at all. I assumed she was a new student. She was blond with a blue highlight. A lot of what she was wearing was yellow. Both her shirt under her purple jacket and her skirt that went down to her knees were yellow. She also wore four wristbands, blue sandals, a necklace, and a pin. Out of everyone that came, she wore the most accessories. Mike was wearing a red V-neck with a blue hoodie and light blue pants with a green earth nation belt buckle. He had a weird hairstyle. It was the baby of an Afro and Jimmy Neutron’s whippy dip hair.
“Hey, Mike and Val!” Danny said elastically.
“Hey!” they both said.
“Dan, this is Mike and Val.”
“Hi.” I greeted.
“Ello governor!” The two of them said.
“Come in guys, we’re watching Bland-fect. Maybe Dorms and The Adventures of Rania lords after the Bland-Fect marathon.”
“Ooo, I have a lot to catch up on with Dorms,” Val said as they came in.
“Where should we put our potluck stuff?” Mike asked. He had fruit punch that had a perfect mix of sugar, water and flavor. The jar had a blue, pink and striped ribbon. His friend, Val had vanilla brownies that had a chocolate ball inside.
The potluck finally began when they settled down. Danny started a conversation about something. I paid more attention to what on television. At the time, I did want to talk to everyone but I didn't. I always everyone in the room when there's a group of people. This was bugging me too much. I tried asking anyone if they wanted me to get them something. I kept doing this for a bit until I tried getting a drink for Mike. On my way back to where he was sitting, I bumped into Jenny and accidentally spilled juice on her.
"OH MY GLOB! I'm SOO SORRY!!" I said.
"It's alright." she said.
"But I ruined your shirt! I'm so sorry. Ugh, I ruined everything.” I said.
"No, No, it's alright. Nothing’s ruined,” she said.
“Oh…” I said.
“You seem a bit tense there, are you ok?” she said.
“Not really…” I replied.
“Why?” she asked.”
“Well, I have to host a party.”
“And?” she said.
“It’s just… I feel like I’m going to turn this into yet another disaster like the last party I hosted.” I said.
“From how the party's going, it looks far from a disaster. And what other party are you talking about?” she said.
“Well, back in the 5th grade, I had a Halloween party and it wasn’t the greatest thing ever. Throughout the party, all my friends were uninterested in anything I did to spice up things. When I wasn’t doing that, I helped everyone with their request and problems. I couldn’t even enjoy my party! When the party was over, everyone kept sighing and groaning about how terrible the party was. I vowed to myself that I’d never host a party again. Now, I’m forced to break that vow because Danny couldn’t get another person to host the potluck.” I said.
“Ouch! On the bright side of things, technically, this isn't a party,” she said.
“Still! It’s a social event. Plus, it can determine whether I get new friends or not.”
“From how things look out there, there’s a chance that you will get friends. Even if the party is boring.”
“A chance…” I moaned. I rolled into a ball and kept my head down.
“It’s only a chance if you don’t get up and start socializing,” she said. I looked up.
“So let’s get up and start a conversation.” She reached her hand out to me and I started to blush. So, I moved my hand towards and grabbed her hand. She pulled me up and my emotion slowly shifted to being optimistic. We walked back to the where everyone was and I gave Mike the drink he wanted.
“Ello governors, what were the two of you doing over there?” Danny said.
“We were just having a small discussion about stuff,” Jenny said. I nodded.
“What were the four of you talking about?” She asked.
“Well, we were having a discussion about which ship is better from The Adventures of Rania Lords. Rania and Arnold or Jake and Rania? I say, Jake and Rania.” Danny said.
“Um, no,” I interrupted.
“It’s obvious that Arnold and Rania are the better ship,” I said.
“THANK YOU!” Mike and Jen said.
“Are you suuuure about that?” Val said.
“Yeah. You do know that Rania and Arnold dumped each other after hooking up for like three hours.”Danny said.
“Plus, Jake and Rania are already dating,” Jenny added.
“Their relationship is slowly going down the drain. You can easily see it!!” Mike said.
“Exactly!” Jen and I shouted.
And so, for the rest of the night, we talked and talked. I felt like the potluck was a major success! This had to be the first time in awhile that I got to socialize with people. After I stopped thinking about what everyone thought, I actually enjoyed the potluck. From how it looks, my new ‘friends’ might be the best friends I’ve gotten so far in life. That truly makes me feel great inside. For the first time ever, I have actually great friends. Good night my governors :)
__________________________________________________________
“Wow, interesting how you planned all that out. You
did plan all that out?” Page asked.
“In a way, yes. I knew that in the end, Dan was going to become
friends with Jen, Jenny, Val and Mike. I did, but yet, expect Dan to learn how
not to care to much about certain things. I just tried to connect the lesson to
the who popular stuff because I still wanted him to think I knew everything.” I
said.
“So you’re not a planning mastermind?” Sadie said humorously.
“Ha ha, no.” I said, laughing a bit.
“Anyway, back in Eighth Grade, were you and Dan in any other
clubs other than Buddies 4 Newbies?” Page asked.
“Well, there was Green Team and the short lived Wood Writers. I
think I put in Dan’s blog post about the time we joined Green Team,” I said, I
start skimming through the book for the post. Once I got to the table of
contents, I found conveniently next to the previous post I had read.
“Got it, I’ll just skip my commentary and just read the entire
blog post.” I said
“Ok, that’s fine.” Page said.
“Ok… September
12th, 2014, The Green Has Begun… So yesterday I had gone to the first green
team meeting. We went through all the basic stuff but I am going to have to get
used to having many ‘friends’ here. I guess you can call them (Jenny, Jen,
Val, Mike and Danny) my friends since they consider me their friends. It’s
still feels weird having a bunch of friends…”
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Up Next: Behind The Blogs: Dinner Party (Sometime this week), After Hours: Club Edition (Late March)
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