In retrospect, a party encouraging people to conceal interesting goods inside slouch bags may not have been the best idea. The slouch bag aspect was great, don’t get me wrong. Everyone came swanning in with these vintage bags slung over their shoulders (except Mystira, who didn’t seem to understand the concept and spent the whole evening telling people that her clearly new bag was from the World War One). I myself had a black leather bag from the 1970s, still very stylish but drenched in nostalgia and retro charm. The whole reason I threw the party was to show it off, because in regular life I do of course have a more contemporary soft leather shoulder bag.
Anyway…the first few items came out, conversation was lively and interesting, just as I planned. Any time there was a lapse, someone would simply pull out another item and the whole thing would become lively again! I’m such a genius.
We had our first blip when Mystira pulled out her bag of white powder and tried to have everyone guess if it was “drugs, anthrax or something else, tee-hee!” She is such a downer. I went up to her and said to put away that bag of obvious flour, lest she upset everyone, but little did I know, Basil had been emboldened to show everyone his miniature ant farm. I whirled around as he screamed girlishly; turns out that he’d been too rough with the bag, the glass had shattered and now his precious pets were crawling all over him and stinging, because he decided to farm venomous ants for some reason. We rushed him off to the hospital, but by that time Kimberly was showing everyone how she could make a flamethrower out of a bottle of hairspray and Paprika had cleared out a space in the middle of the lounge to perform an ancient three-section-staff dance. When Yasmina started pulling out fistfuls of cheesecake-scented glitter and throwing it into people’s drinks, I knew the night was at a close.
So to sum it all up, the soft leather shoulder bag aspect was an absolute treat. Next time, however, we’re dropping the strange object rule. Maybe I’ll also set up an x-ray scanner, like they have at airports.
-Talia