Went to a birthday party this evening. Here's a suggestion to anyone else planning a birthday party in the near future. Pinatas are a great idea. However, be careful about what material you fill it with. Candy is great, as are small toys or expensive French cheeses. Raw organ meat is quite not as great. I'm sure it seemed funny and sort of ironic earlier in the evening, when you were packing the papier-maché bull with room temperature cow intestines and livers. However, I'm sure it seemed significantly less funny when one of the kids split the pinata open with a wiffle ball bat and sent a soft, blood-soaked kidney flying across the room where it landed on my eight year-old son's cake plate, right alongside his specially packed macrobiotic, non-dairy fig cake. For shame!

I love a good joke as much as the next person - I am quick with a spoonerism and happen to own the entire musical catalog of P.D.Q. Bach - but this was just plain irresponsible. By the way, unless you can come up with a proven method for removing cow blood from expensive fabric, you owe me exactly one new pair of child-sized acid washed denim overalls. And you owe my son, Evan, an explanation - and another slice of fig cake.