It’s a house party, but we’re not playing house. We’re mature, established adults throwing a classy adult party in the crumbling apartment we rent filled with Target Room Essentials™ decor. Heads up, it's a 6th-floor walk-up.
We’re not setting out childish bowls of chips and pretzels, or unappetizing, low-effort, downright garish pre-packaged cookies. Instead, we’re serving top-shelf charcuterie curated by the wonderful cheesemongers at Whole Foods, which will sit out all night. No plates. Enjoy your napkin full of room-temperature cheese with a rubbery sheen. And mystery dip! There’s spinach in it! And probably some cat hair—but, hey, it’s organic.
Oh, you brought some pre-packaged cookies. How thoughtful.
Shoes off, please. We don’t have a foyer or any space on our shoe rack, so just leave them in the hall. It’s totally safe. We’re on the 6th floor, remember? No one comes up here. We just mopped the apartment a couple weeks ago, and we’ve barely worn our own shoes in here since then. Maybe like, once or thirty times. It’s probably best if your socks aren’t white.
Our party will be candle-lit—exclusively. No harsh overhead lighting, just roughly 12-15 candles strewn about. Yes, we have three cats who are known to knock over water glasses, books, and, admittedly, candles, but they should be hiding under the bed for the entire duration of the party. Just maybe don’t wear super-flammable hairspray or bell sleeves.
We’ve got Brooklinen hand towels and a half-full Aesop hand soap in our bathroom that we only put out when we know people are coming over, and our usual Mrs. Meyer’s gets banished to under the sink. So rest assured your trip to the loo will be luxurious. We also have a fully maxed-out litter box in there (the cats stress-shit whenever someone enters our home), but we’ve got, like, five scented candles surrounding it. Watch your step!
You bet we’ll have party games, which is always a great way to give the appearance of fun. But no, nothing you’ve heard of. We start with a regular deck of cards, but after 30-40 minutes of explaining the rules—hey, please don’t talk while I’m explaining the rules, focus up—that deck will be transformed into a totally incomprehensible game with no end in sight. It’s designed for four players, but with some creative finagling I’m sure all 20 of us can play.
Do you like charades? Well you’ll love it when my college acquaintance puts “Malcolm Gladwell” in the bowl for you to act out.
We didn’t decorate—streamers and balloons are decidedly juvenile. As are plastic cups, so we’re setting out our finest glassware. If you break it, you buy it! Kidding. But we will be huge dicks about it if anything happens. Grab an heirloom crystal glass and make yourself totally at home! If you don't use a coaster I will shoot you with a gun.
A good adult party doesn’t rely on a simple Bluetooth speaker to set the mood. We’ll brush the dust off our record player and spin some frisbees. We found some cool vintage 2000s speakers on the sidewalk—they’re pretty solid, but they do audio pop like nobody’s business. We have a cubby full of records for albums that came out between the years 2010 and 2012, the White Album, and Future Nostalgia by Dua Lipa. That’s it.
Do you like vaguely acknowledging the news of the day in mixed company? You'll love this party. Surrounded by strangers with unknown political affiliations, you'll have to address current events with veiled language in an attempt to safely gauge the temperature of the room. And trust me when I say, our guests have some weird politics. If all else fails, just ask what part of town they're coming from and then reply, “Ah, nice,” no matter what they say.
Who’s coming? My boss, so be on your best behavior. Also, our reclusive and off-putting neighbors we had to invite so they wouldn’t complain about the noise—you’ll need to serve as a social buffer because they don’t know anyone else and I need to host. Maybe the four of you can play the card game together. A round takes about two hours.
We’re all adults here, so please leave exactly when we want you to, we would like to go to bed. And by “go to bed” we mean watch half an episode of Industry. We normally would watch a full episode, but we'll have leftovers to put away, candles to blow out, and anxious cats to give antacids to.
When is the exit time, you wonder? Oh, we won't be sharing that—that would be so gauche! Instead, we'll just expect you to know, and if you accidentally overstay your welcome we'll talk shit about it while we clean the mess you left.
Thanks for coming to our party! Please take something for the road. We wouldn't know what to do with all these leftovers! Here, how about these cheap grocery store cookies you brought as a gift that nobody touched? Take them with you! We promise, we don't want them.