Apparently, gender reveal parties are all the rage. Not to pick on Millenials, but everything needs to be an event. Because it is super important for other people to know the sex of your fetus. If it is even yours, of course. It might not be. I’m just throwing that out there. Not every womb tenant is who we think they are. There’s a reveal party for you.
“John, I have something to tell you.”
“What’s that, Felicia?”
“The baby. He’s not yours.” Felicia wipes away her tears. She is very sad to have to tell John this devastating news.
“But we had a reveal party with all of our friends,” John pleads.
Felicia nods. “Well, they aren’t all your friends.”
Anyway, at one of these reveal parties the parents decided to spring the news via cannon. Yes, that sort of cannon. Not the fat guy who played the detective when I was a kid. That guy is long dead. Though perhaps a Ouija board reveal would be pretty cool.
Here’s what happened:
A Michigan man died on Saturday after he was hit with pieces of metal from a cannon that exploded after it was fired as a Michigan couple announced plans for a baby shower.
Evan Thomas Silva, 26, was sent to the hospital after attending a small party in the backyard of a Gaines Township, Mich., couple as they announced their plans.
The cannon was meant to shoot into the air to mark the occasion but exploded instead, local police said, sending hunks of the metal frame flying more than a dozen feet into the small crowd.
One of the metal shards struck Silva in the chest, WJRT reported, causing serious injures. Silva died at a hospital in Flint hours later.
Booooooooom!!! You killed your friend. But at least you made a big splash. No one will ever forget the day that you told them your kid is going to be a girl, something they would have learned in due time anyway. (In the interest of full disclosure, I hate when people find out the sex of their baby before it is born. It’s like opening the presents on December 23 and rewrapping them. Dumb.)
While this seems like a particularly foolish way to kill your friend, it is not without precedent. Last year a 56 year old Iowa woman was killed when there was an explosion at a gender reveal party. Corn cobs everywhere.
Of course, sometimes people at gender reveal parties aren’t killed by shrapnel. In 2017, a gender reveal party sparked a wildfire that eventually burned 47,000 acres.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!” as Beavis would say. And the child, predictably, was named Beavis. Not really, but he should have been. Or she. I believe that Beavis is gender neutral. Like Terry. Cannon, however, is very much a boy’s name. Unless spelled with a K.
As a parent, I know it is important to think your child is going to be special. After all, they are special to you. But the reality is, they probably aren’t special. Average to slightly above average is all you really should be hoping for. If it turns out for the better, happy day. If it turns out worse, well, at least your hopes aren’t crushed.
And you didn’t kill anyone with a homemade cannon.