Apparently I am the only journalist in America who is not afraid to speak out against birthday-party pinatas. Apparently all the other so-called "journalists" - and, yes, Mr. Bob Woodward, I am talking to you - are scared to take on the powerful international pinata industry.
Fine. I will courageously "take the heat" on this, knowing I could wind up hanging in a dark alley, being beaten with sticks until my flesh ruptures and my body hemorrhages candies and small cheesy toys. But I cannot sit idly by, not after the horrifying incident I witnessed recently at the birthday party of one of my daughter's friends.
Our daughter, who is 4, has WAY more friends than we do. There are thousands of them, and they were all, at some point, born. So pretty much all we do is attend birthday parties. We always take a toy, and I always feel pity for the wretched parent who will have to try to remove this toy from its packaging.
In recent years the toy industry, after consulting its lawyers, decided it was too dangerous to allow children to come into contact with toys. So the industry went to the Institute of Defensive Packaging, which is the outfit that made it impossible to open an aspirin bottle without a hammer. For toys, the Institute came up with a vicious system that involves attaching the toy to the package with dozens of nearly invisible twisted titanium wires, which are then covered with powerful adhesive tape, after which everything is encased in thick, weapons-grade plastic that, when you try to cut it with a knife - and, trust me, you eventually will - defends itself by turning into lethal shards that can slice through your arm like a machete through a Twinkie. And of course, while you're grappling with this packaging, cursing and bleeding, your child is in your ear asking "When can I play with it when when whenwhenwhenwhenWHENWHENWHEN?" Such is the power of child nagging that some parents are, incredibly, still getting through to the toys. So the Institute of Defensive Packaging is working on a new system: Soon, toys will be immobilized inside Lucite blocks, like giant paperweights, so the child can only look at them and cry while the parent checks the Yellow Pages under "Acetylene Torch Rental." Homes will burn down; people will die. But that is the price a society pays for safe packaging.
Anyway, at the party for my daughter's friend, the theme was Cinderella. The Birthday Girl was dressed as Cinderella, and the Birthday Mom had ordered a Cinderella pinata. It was the largest pinata I have ever seen: four feet tall, with a smiling blond head on top of a blue-gowned body. She was too heavy to hang by a rope, so she just stood there throughout the party, looking almost like a real princess, smiling, unaware of her fate.
When each child had ingested enough sugar to decay all the teeth in Asia, it was time. Everybody gathered around Cinderella. This was when the adults began to realize, with a growing sense of horror, what was about to happen.
Nobody was more horrified than the Birthday Mom, who, I suspect, had not thought through the concept of a life-size fairy-tale princess pinata. But at that point, with small children clamoring for loot, she had no choice but to hand a stick to the Birthday Girl. And thus we experienced the surreal sight of a small Cinderella whacking the bejabbers out of a larger Cinderella.
Except the bejabbers refused to come out. As I have noted, modern pinatas are built like Volvo sedans, only stronger: The pinata took several blows directly to the face from the Birthday Girl, and Cinderella kept right on smiling. So the Birthday Mom shoved Cinderella over onto the ground, thus enabling the Birthday Girl to whack straight down on her, but she STILL wouldn't open. Finally the Birthday Mom, growing desperate, handed the stick to a teenaged boy, who raised it high over his head and brought it down on Cinderella with a mighty WHOMP that caused all the adults to cringe violently. But it worked: There was a deep dent in Cinderella, and WHOMP now there was a hole, and WHOMP it was bigger, and WHOMP now loot was pouring out, and children were swarming over Cinderella's mutilated body, which was nearly detached now from her head, which was still smiling happily, as though she believed that at any moment her prince pinata would come.
It was awful. Even now, weeks later, I feel guilty for having watched it happen, and doing nothing. I have promised myself that, next time, I will not stand idly by.
Next time, I will videotape it.
