Patty texted me the party information. I was intrigued by the address, as it was located in an older part of town. As I pulled up, I thought I was driving into a magazine photo shoot. What I thought were two houses was actually one house that connected two seemingly distinct buildings. The outside was immaculately decorated with a large horseshoe driveway. Large wreaths adorned the door. I double-checked the address. "Holy shit," I thought to myself.
I rang the doorbell. I heard voices within, but nobody came to the door. I thought perhaps I was at the wrong address. I texted my friend and rang the doorbell again.
Out popped my friend. "You're at the right house!" she chirped. I walked inside the magazine house.
The beauty outside the home was no match for the beauty inside the home. The fireplace was roaring. The home was decorated with poinsettas, pine, candles, and other miscellaneous holiday adornments placed everywhere. It seemed that not even a speck of dust had dared settle anywhere. Holiday music was softly playing. I was amazed.
"Make yourself comfortable!" my friend said. I set my purse down. I took a moment to walk around the living room which was larger than my one-bedroom apartment. I looked at the photos on one of the mantles. The couple who owned the home was picture-perfect. They were young. The woman was pretty, blonde, and had an excellent body, and the husband was very handsome with a body to match hers. Another photograph showed the couple with their two young daughters. The girls appeared to be in elementary school. "This is what everybody wants - wealth, a banging body after two kids, and a hot husband," I thought to myself.
Moments later, the husband emerged. He appeared slightly older than the photograph. He was very tall, about three heads higher than me. Like any good host, he offered to get us some drinks. "We have a homemade pineapple vodka if you would like to try that!" I accepted. It tasted like the vodka went to the Caribbean and became a citizen. It was delicious. Recognizing the danger in such a delicious drink, I limited myself to one glass of it.
More guests began streaming in, each one a character that was distinct from the next, but I noticed there was some commonalities among them all. The wife came down the stairs, breasts tastefully showing. She greeted us and began darting about the home, making sure that everything was perfect. If something was even a centimeter out of place, she adjusted it. She, too, was slightly older than the photograph. I noticed that her face appeared to have had some work done to it. I also noticed that her breasts were amazingly perky. Upon a closer look, I concluded that they, too, may have had some work done to them.
Every woman at the party looked like she had botox injected in her face. I had never seen so much botox in one room, complete with a pair of operated breasts. It was amazing. I observed the guests and the hosts, laughing, joking, and reveling in the gossip of the day. The women, who all appeared to be in their 40s, were dressed sexy - some in short dresses, some in tight jeans with low-cut sweaters, and all with their men following after them. The men all had the same patterns - they looked like normal men who had spent a lot of time at the gym staying fit, probably to keep up with the botox.
The only women who did not display such work were the younger couples who looked like they were in their 30s. I wondered to myself whether they would ever enter this metamorphosis of botox. I concluded that they likely would within the next 10-15 years, based on the patterns I observed among their older friends.
I kept an eye out for any single men at the party, but there were none to be found. I noticed that a few of the men shot quick look-overs at me, but none dared speak to me. The women were obviously territorial, keeping their drinks close to them and their men even closer. I noticed that not many of the couples ever separated during the evening, each couple staying within a 4-foot radius of one another.
The daughters of the house later paraded through with their friends. They were not the sweet, young girls that were in the photographs I saw. They were teenagers that looked like they were working their way up to the Red Light District in Amsterdam. Their faces were painted heavily with makeup. All of them had red lipstick that was so deep and so bright that I think a clown would have been jealous. Their skirts were skin-tight and short enough to be confused with shorts. One of the girls wore shorts that were so short her butt was exposed. I wondered to myself why she just didn't walk out in her underwear and call it a day. Their tops were low-cut, exposing their still-developing breasts as far down as probably what would have been the beginning of their tits. Their heels were high, fitting for adult hookers, but not quite for such young girls. I was appalled. I thought that maybe a parent or grandparent would reprimand them. Not at all. "Oh you look so beautiful!" commented the adults to the girls. My father would have had my head on a platter before I even attempted to walk out in public dressed like that, or even wear that much makeup at that age. These girls appeared to be fifteen and sixteen years old. I could only think two words about these girls, "Jail bait."
It occurred to me that this house was just a sample of what was wrong with our society as a whole - it was focused on the artificial and keeping up appearances and had no problem with over-sexing the young. It was a house full of people who had a fear of aging and was doing everything medically possible to prevent the appearance of age. Nobody wanted to look their age.
I heard a disturbance in another room. A few of the party-goers had gotten into an argument that turned physical. Some shoving was happening. The host husband whizzed by me with a smile saying, "Never a dull moment!" I felt like Alice in Wonderland. What is this place? The men who were fighting separated. I saw one of them storm out of the room. The party went on as if nothing occurred. The host walked past me again with the same, bright smile.
Patty and I chatted throughout the night, with her telling me a few stories about some of the guests. One of the highlights was a woman who, upon first meeting Patty, recommended that she get botox on her eyes. Another story included a couple who was there with their young son. Patty was babysitting for them one day, and she found a small baggie of cocaine in the cupboard. She had never gone back.
After a few hours, Patty and I, along with a couple of Patty's other normal friends that I had spent the night socializing with, decided to leave. I had enough of the weird house.
As I got in my car and took one last look at the house from the outside, I realized that the house wasn't perfect at all. The house itself looked physically perfect, but it was filled with people who couldn't handle reality, including the owners. It made me thankful that I didn't have these problems. To feel the need to keep up appearances that much meant that there was perpetual unhappiness or dissatisfaction with oneself.
When I turned my car on, the engine started making some weird noises. I chuckled to myself. I can take the flaws in my life, only because I'm happy with it.
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