Too Much Birthday

I was at a wedding the other day, and while there is plenty that I might write about, the first thing that occurs to me is something rather incidental that happened during the proceedings. At the hotel my parents opted for, there was a rather expansive lobby. It had a bar and a lot of space riddled with furniture. It was really a fairly nice place, although I can't imagine seeking to linger in any hotel lobby personally.

The first time I went in there, there was a party going on. In fact, signage informed us that it was some girl's seventeenth birthday, and it strikes me that it was a rather extravagant set-up for such a party. I know of course that many affluent families are prone to spending heavily to make their progeny happy (or is it to make their own young selves happier after the fact?) I just never really saw too much of that stuff myself.

Certainly I cannot think of any birthday party of mine in which some neutral site was rented out. I remember birthdays of friends in which tables were reserved at a McDonald's, but that was not done for me. The parties for me that I remember invariably took place in my own home at no tremendous expense. Perhaps my parents would argue that more was spent than I make out to be the case here, but the point is that the parties were of conventional scale. When I was seventeen, I think my high school friends and I watched horror movies downstairs.

I cannot, all that being the case, relate to any kid who had more than that lavished on them. Don't be mistaken, I grew up quite comfortable, and never wanted for a thing. I just never can recall having more lavished on me than I really needed, and maybe I didn't like that at the time, but I appreciate it more and more. Maybe it's like "Brave New World" where everyone's encoded to be glad for the socioeconomic status assigned to them, but I'm glad I never had a big birthday party in some well-appointed hotel. That never would have been me.