My family attended a Memorial day bbq block party we have every year. All people we know who are familiar with my story. There was one new family on the block, and they were attending their first block bbq. 

Things were going great, everyone was eating and having fun. But the father in this new family unit, who I will call “The Smiths,” brought out a piñata that had been following them from house to house as they moved, and thought it would be fun for us all to bash it in.

When my daughter saw it, she turned pale and threw up her hotdog and beans. My wife took her home and I explained to Mr. Smith why it had such a profound affect on my daughter. 

He laughed it off and said, I quote, “Well, she’s gone now so let the rest of us have some fun.”

At that point, I would simply have left the gathering, but but over a half dozen of my neighbors stepped in and told Mr. Smith where to shove his piñata. Several of the wives went to our house to coax out my daughter (they succeeded with promises of chocolate egg creams.) 

More than one of my neighbors apologized to me for the behavior of Mr. Smith and told me they wanted me to know that my family (and our bbq chops) are always more welcome than a piñata. I have never felt so welcomed by a group of people in my life. The entire block stepped in and supported my quest to educate everyone to the dangers of piñatas.  

And Mr. Smith? Well, he’s a bit of a pariah for now. But my neighbors are good Christian people, and we’ll forgive him before the next block party.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 11:38 pm and is filed under The Aftermath. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.