Overpriced candles and easily amused women!

Once again the ladies are parked in front of ye olde laptop, comforting our wounded souls with beer and fine cheese. You may be wondering, "What's wrong? Why no more candle parties?!" Well, allow us to bestow the horrors of a hellish afternoon upon you.

We'd like to begin by sharing with you an angry Book-o-Faces message that brought us to this specific candle soirée.

I am having a candle aprty on Sunday 1-3-10 @ 2 pm and want you to try to make it. I invited your mom and going to invite you sister, but I don't have address to send you an invite so consider this an invite. hope you can make it. let me know.

(Typos left intact.)

Now don't get us wrong. We love getting together with family and friends for some great snacks and fun times, but this was just too much. We were planning on never responding to the invite so that we wouldn't get roped into wasting an afternoon and a substantial amount of money on overpriced crap, but we came face to face with the party host on Christmas Eve. Dun, dun, dun!

Many of you (particularly the men) may not be familiar with what exactly transpires at a Candle Party. It's difficult for us to convey the mind numbing waste of several hours and many dollars that is a Candle Party; but being the martyrs that we are, we are willing to share our tale as a warning to the general public.

(Let us pause for a cheese break.)

Okay, now where were we? Candle parties = HELL! If you take nothing else away from this blog, please remember that equation. This is our story of our trip to hell and back! (Pretend that you're watching it through a shaky, hand held camera.)

We arrive at the party (carrying our assigned food offerings) just as the Steelers game is about to begin. We're already angry about both missing kickoff and having to stop at the store for the snacks that we've agreed to bring. (Although, we did offer because our Mommy raised us right.)

We're immediately greeted by the host's husband who is comfy cozy in front of his large flat screen TV, sporting his best Steelers jersey and prepped with a six pack of beer for a long day of football. We're instantly envious of his afternoon plans. We were immediately asked to remove our shoes and head upstairs to the living room/infomercial set. An overly enthusiastic group of middle aged women immediately acknowledged our arrival, but more importantly they acknowledged the snacks that we had in hand.

As soon as we removed our coats and scarves an overly made up candle pusher slapped name tags on to our upper chests, which was eerily reminiscent of those kindergarten field trips to the zoo. (Although, the zoo is fun! Hooray zoo!)

Before we even had a moment to savor a morsel of delicious party food, we were handed folders containing candle catalogs, order forms, brochures, and information on hosting our very own party. Small candle samples were then shoved beneath our delicate nostrils so that we could be subjected to the offensive scents of bored housewives. (We're getting pretty annoyed by this point and the party has yet to officially begin.)

The wax pusher was an obnoxious older woman with a smoker's voice, bedazzled clothing, and a mouth full of sass. Once it was decided that everyone was present, she began her "presentation" of over priced, cheaply made candles and accessories. She insisted that everyone participate in the shenanigans by placing an overstuffed bag next to each individual and forcing each attendee to display it's contents one by one. Sometimes, there would even be a lengthy blurb for the victim to read. So essentially we were forced to work so that we could spend large sums of money on wax.

(So here is where we're really going to rant!)

At one point during this broad's presentation, Sarah was handed an envelope and forced to expose its contents. The contents were three of the wax pusher's pay stubs. Each stub was for one week of part-time (about 10 hours) work and averaged $1000 a pop. As the lady stated herself, she made this money "selling wax!" Now most of the party goers were impressed and eager to explore their own futures in wax pushing. We, on the other hand, were wondering why we were being forced to spend money on this obviously over priced pyramid scheme. The wax monster then continued to explain that her superior averaged $90,000 a year.

The "party" had been raging for nearly two hours by this point when we were encouraged to pull out our check books. There was no escaping this process as we were forced to individually meet with the wax monster as she totaled our orders and attempted to push additional products upon us.

So, what did we get out of this party? Well, for approximately $50 you can be the proud owner (in two weeks time) of one dozen tea lights and a jar candle. That's right, folks. $50 emm effin dollarz!

If you find yourself tricked into attending one of these absurd events, we recommend that you immediately locate the punchbowl upon your arrival and add a bottle of your favorite vodka. You will need it! Also, you should steal something of the host's just to even out your pocketbook. This could mean lining your purse with hors d'oeuvres or stealing decorative soaps from the powder room.

Don't mistake our anger towards candle parties for candle hate. We love candles! Stay tuned and we will teach you how to make your very own so that you'll never have to experience our candle party pain.