The day I became a Chudette.

I can’t remember the last birthday I was bombarded with this many gifts. Maybe people feel extra sorry for me this year. The missing front teeth aren’t a good look.

One of my first gifts was this hat:

Würth supplies the bike shop with screws, industrial lubricant and cleansers. In other words, the least exciting products imaginable. When I shared a photo of my present with Jordi, he said, “Only the chudiest of chuds wear those.”

I quickly responded with, “I’m a Chud today!”

That wasn’t true. My Chuddery began in Montréal. I had a hat just like it. It was my unofficial camping hat. Here I am modelling it on top of Mount Lafayette in 2017:

When I moved a bunch of my belongings back to BC, the hat did not make the cut.

The Karty snacks were: button mushrooms and dip, gummy turtles and bananas, star-shaped shortbread cookies, chocolate coins, and Fireball cinnamon whiskey. As a joke, I put out my drug (kitchen) scale and a bag of magic mushrooms. Had someone expressed an interest in doing shrooms, I’d have let them microdose. I didn’t want anybody freaking out at my place.

I started making the decorations a week before, starting with new costumes for Ducknana and Avocato:

I sewed checkered pennants, hung chocolate coins, made item boxes to suspend from the ceiling, and printed out a picture of Lakitu to stick on cardboard with cotton balls.

I’d been hoarding the boxes my scented candles came in. I initially saved them to repackage candles I wasn’t burning. But I hadn’t discarded any boxes from the candles I’d finished. They were almost the perfect size to craft an item box out of. They’re empty but fragrant!

The Karty itself was a lot of fun. Strangely, most people showed up at the beginning: a sign of aging revellers.

At one point, there were 12 people, but as the night wound down, there were 6. As much as I enjoyed it, I was relieved when it was over by 10:30 p.m. I don’t have long-lasting social batteries. I could not tolerate the parties I enjoyed in my 20s now.

I did not expect to presents! They were all better than the Würth hat I’d gotten that morning. Paddy gave me a card in which he wrote, “Nothin but the best for my friend of… almost 19 years!”

Paddy made me do Math. We really have known each other for that long. We don’t talk to each other regularly, but we liked each other enough to stay in touch for that long! Nic showed up, and he’d known me since my original Würth cap era.

The prize for the Karty was a cap! No, not an immediate re-gift of the Würth hat. It was the white Fire Mario cap. The winner was determined by the player’s highest Grand Prix score (a total of four races). I almost won my own prize. In the end, Daniel won, followed by Jordi and then Alexa (who also gets the hat via spousal rights).

The roomie wasn’t in attendance as he went out of town for the weekend. I told him I was open to hosting another Karty if it was successful. I meant in a few months when I said this, but he seems to want to set something up for December.

I guess I’ll leave up the decorations until then. At least it’s the end of the year. The June sun would make for some leaky floating chocolate coins.