Party Invitations - A Few Rules Will Do
I hosted a Go-Away-Goat party last weekend. For those who dont know, when someone is going away for a while and you host a goat-eating to bid them farewell, we call that a Go-Away-Goat party. It was for wifey, who is flying out, and the party was hosted with strict rules for those invited. Those rules centered on gate crashers and people who assume a Party Invitation is like mobile phone credit to be sambazwad to anyone with a functioning mouth and stomach. And the instructions were simple. Come alone, or bring food for anyone you bring.
It sounded harsh at the time but it worked like a charm.
For the first time, I had a party with ZERO gate-crashers. The food was ample and the budget was adhered to.
You know Kenyans have a bad habit of bringing their entire tribe and circle of friends to parties they are invited to. I dont know whether Kenyan invitations are created to scale where One invite represents ten. This has become so serious that the popular BYOD party rule (Bring Your Own Drinks) will very soon get a review and get new categories. These ones are outlined as follows ...
a) BYOD & F - With the hard economic times, this is definitely where we are headed. You will soon be invited to a party with the BYOD & F condition attached - meaning Bring Your Own Drinks and Food. The last two words will more often than not be underlined and in bold.
b) BYOFFEEG - This is the one I employed last weekend. Bring Your Own Food For Every Extra Guest. It worked like a charm.
c) BYOC - Bring Your Own Carpet. This is for people who refuse to remove shoes during parties and soil it with their not so clean footwear. It will also apply to people who eat and drink so much that they cant keep the food and drinks indoors.
d) BYOM - We all know them. Those people who come to your party and immediately start ordering you around. A cup of water, warm the food, change the glass blah blah blah. For such souls, Bring Your Own Mboch!
e) BSM-O-STFOH - This is simple. Bring Some Manners OR Stay The Fuck Off! It will especially be beneficial to keep off people whose manners were last seen when politicians used to make sense.
These new categories will go a long way in streamlining the behavior of errant guests and ensuring they start behaving when invited to parties. And if you are one of the people who bring your entire clan to a party, may Osama's ghost launch a terrorist attack in your stomach every time you do.
