Mum told Gray he could have his birthday anywhere he wanted this year, as long as he organised it himself. Gray is a fairly safe bet. He’s quiet and not very outgoing. He’d much rather be with his mates out on a field before popping party poppers.
“You can start by researching kids birthday party venues. Melbourne places are busy this time of year so don’t put it off too long.”
Mum is super busy herself. She runs two businesses from home and flies in and out of the state a lot on business trips. When it came to finding a great place to have a party in Melbourne, Mum would actually already know. She doesn’t leave a lot up to us, but when she drops a responsibility bomb on us, we’ve learned that she expects us to come back at her with a result.
Gray had to ring around and get quotes and work out everything he needed to do. Mum gave him a list, and on it was everything he’d need to find out to make sure they could walk in and walk out of the party without needing anything else.
I tried to talk to Mum about how much I thought it was a bit much, I reminded her about how Gray could hardly look anyone in the face without blushing.
Mum widened her eyes and gave me the shtick about doing the things we are frightened of the most.
‘We don’t go around problems. We go through them.”
Anyway, Gray sailed through his problem like nothing we expected. He bought mum back a print out of the quote he’d been given for a party for six of his friends at an ice-skating rink near one of Melbourne’s docks. Mum took one look at the quote, nodded and looked him right in the eye, folding the quote into her handbag.
‘Get started on your invitations,’ she said.
For the record, I’d just like to say that we were doing things on ice before it was cool. In the last five years, it seems like ice skating has exploded into this super sport. There’s that Yugoslavian guy with his inspirational biography and excellent teaching methods. And then in