Have you ever been out at a party and thought to yourself : I am enjoying this party, but I wish I was wetter and stickier and felt more of a burning sensation in my eyes and mouth.
If so, then foam parties are for you.
I went to one the other night. Mostly because it was two feet from where I’d already been out with some people, and everyone was going and I thought, okay, why not? I’ll try it.
The thing about a foam party is that there’s no reason to have a foam party. None. Like no one has ever been to a party and thought, “all that’s missing from this party is some soap.” That’s not a thing that happens. Because parties are already fun, there are drinks and music and dancing and people to meet. Soap doesn’t need to enter into the equation here.
And yet somehow it ended up that someone (read: Frat guys or possibly the makers of Dawn?) decided that foam and parties should be paired up, and now people wrongly believe that it makes perfect sense. Peanut butter and jelly. Burt and Ernie. Foam and parties.
So I went. They give you a little ziploc bag for your electronics when you walk it. Oh dear. It’s about 678 degrees inside (which as we all know, has scientifically been proven to be the temperature at which foam is the foamiest) and packed full of people. You can’t even really dance, you can just step a little to the right and then a little to the left and and smile and bounce your head about and pretend it’s dancing.
I overhear a young girl, obviously a professional foam party attender, providing some sage advice to some younger greener party goers: “One thing is that you should try not to eat it or get it in your eyes,” she tells them condescendingly. They all nod in solemn acknowledgement of this wisdom. — Wow, yes, thanks. Helpful. So as long as you don’t try to breathe or see, you should be all set.
I turn and head directly to the bar and buy two beers. The only way to be at a party like this is to be drunk at said party, and I am working on it.
I turn back from the bar and THWACK! foam covered beach ball directly in the face. I drop a beer in a belated attempt to defend myself from it. I look at the other beer now filled with soap. Bad start.
I tried to stay away from the foam machine and dance around by the door, hoping only to get my shoes wet. But clean dry people at a foam party are not to be tolerated and the foam monsters are legally bound to throw soap and soapy beach balls at you.
And the thing is, maybe, MAYBE, if we were like in bikinis in “Ibi-tha” you could MAYbe see how it could be tolerated. But it’s the Netherlands. I’m literally in boots. I am standing here, “dancing” and there is soap in my boots. I tell myself it is fun. I like wet boots.
Two more solid thwaps in the face with a beach ball. Someone in my group raises their glass to me from across the bar in a “cheers, isn’t this fun?” sort of gesture. I raise my beer and try to smile, mascara running down my face, a frizzy foamy afro forming on my head and a cup of soap filled beer.
And I ask you, is this fun? Are we having FUUUUUUN?! Whoooo! Spring Break!
