What Would Picasso Do?

or "Artist Spends Birthday Party In Solitary Confinement"

It was my 8th birthday party.

When I was 7-going-on-8, I was creative. Yes, I used to be creative, before society slapped it out of me.  Right before my big transition from 7 to 8 years old, I had been toying around with marshmallows, toothpicks, and little metallic-looking sugar pearls. (Did you know that they're called "dragees"?)
After painstaking minutes of working with these materials, I created little marshmallow robot men, and naturally, I fancied myself an artist.  I mean, face it, my work was extraordinary.  Do you know any kid that has made a marshmallow robot man with metallic dragees?  Right; you don't.  Not one.  No kid you know has ever done that. Well, I did it unassisted.  On my own. No mentor or guide for me. I was a lone wolf, like Picasso.  P. Cass. Oh!

And that's exactly why I knew that my birthday party guests would positively prefer my special prizes over the store-bought junk my mom had bought for the party.  Seriously, what 8-year-old girl wants a decorative hand mirror when she can have an edible work of art made exclusively by the guest of honor?

But mom ruined everything.

Here's how it went down.

We played a game.  I think it was Kathy Goodall who won. (She was so lucky!)
Kathy got to pick her prize, and Mom held out the options.  In order to speed the process along and to help Kathy make the right choice, I elbowed my way in and shoved that mass-manufactured crap out of the way.  I presented my precious marshmallow robot men, knowing that anyone with half a brain and a fraction of good taste would make the right choice.

Kathy hemmed.
My mother hawed.

Kathy may have mumbled that she wanted the hand mirror. Okay, let's face it, Kathy Goodall was still 7 and her taste wasn't so good.  That's why she needed me as an older and more worldly friend to help her make good choices.  Some of us have that gift, and it's our burden - nay, our responsibility - to share it.  Kathy had asked for the mirror and my mother, not understanding the gravity of the moment, the moment of introducing someone to the world of ART, tried to hand the mirror to Kathy over my marshmallow robot man.

This is where it gets a little fuzzy.

I'm pretty sure that I grabbed onto the mirror and yanked it out of Kathy's hands.  I'm pretty sure I thrust a marshmallow robot man into that void, that artless place that needed so desperately to be filled in Kathy Goodall.  What a good friend I was!

But then, I remember my mother doing the unforgivable.  I remember her performing a reverse grab and yank.  She grabbed that soft, white, heavenly piece of art out of Kathy's hands, yanked the mirror back from me, and switched the two before I could say "Picasso."

I may have started to yell.
I may have had an (artistic) tantrum.

Next thing I knew, my mother sent me to my room.
I got sent to my room at my own birthday party.


An artist leads a lonely existence, my friends.

SMACK.