I need your help. We're hosting our dinner club tonight. There are 10 couples and my wife and I can't get our dining room table pulled out further to get the second leaf in. It won't extend anymore (that's what she said).
So we have a card table that we're putting at the very end. Classy. The problem is, I don't feel like sitting at the card table side like a peasant? I want to be in a prime big people spot so I can hold court and make sure all things revolve around me. I find that if I can dictate the pace and content of the conversations, it's a lot more fun for all.
So I need some quick ideas to narrow down who will get stuck at the card table side. I was thinking some kind of trivia. Any ideas?
As for dinner, I'm making this cheesy, garlic shrimp dish that will be served over pasta and some kind of chicken....and twice baked potatoes and some other stuff.
If you give me an idea that I can use, you won't be invited tonight but it will seem like you are there because I'll put your name on a piece of paper and place it on the table...... the card table.
I thought long and hard about it (that's what she said), and I think you should sit on a lazy susan in the middle of the "desirable people" table. You kill two birds with one stone-you'll be the center of attention and all things will revolve around you.
ReplyDeleteMake them eat standing at the sink. Always a gracious and stylish setting. And what about Humorbloggers.com...hmmmm?
ReplyDeleteHow about a "Thunderdome match" and losers eat at the kids table. All you need is a metal cage, various tools from the garage (chainsaws, rakes, picks), and Tina Turner dressed in chain mail. You can pull that off, right?
ReplyDeleteYou could just move your dining room table out and you all eat on card tables? Or on the floor, tell them you are celebrating some sort of ethnic holiday. Hmm or just put the couple that has been together the least amount of time at the card table. Or the couple you dont like, or the couple that brings the cheapest bottle of wine. I could go on and on but I won't.
ReplyDeleteQuiz them. Quiz them on all things That Blue Yak-iness. All who fail the quiz clearly are NOT cultured enough to sit at the real table and, thus, DESERVE the card table. Hell, they should kiss your shoes (or whatever you prefer) that they were even invited!!
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna be invited too next time, right? (sniffle)
As long as you're sitting close enough to kick the legs of the table so it'll collapse on the losers there, you'll be sitting pretty. Have you tried oiling the table with the leaves to get it to extend?
ReplyDeleteWow, that's a tough one! But if you happen to have a game of Trivial Pursuit laying around I'd just see who can answer the most questions right (in teams) and the losing team gets the card table. Or ask trivia about your town or something.
ReplyDeleteYou could have couch pillow races down the stairs, and the winners get to sit at the card table like the true kids they are.
ReplyDeleteWell, you could always just say "okay guys, lets go" and then rush to the regular table, and let the rest of them fight it out. Added bonus: If anyone dies, you will have leftovers.
ReplyDeleteOh how bout musical chairs? Or quarters? Strip poker? This is taking way too much of my thinking this afternoon.
ReplyDeleteSet up a bunch of thrones around the card table. Their table may suck, but their asses will feel quite royal.
ReplyDeletejust get the damn dinner ready will ya!!?? I'll be down there in 90 minutes and I'm starving...I don't care where I sit. I've been drinking all afternoon anyway. you dumb ass.
ReplyDeleteAssigned seats, alphabetical by first name, "to break the couples up." (Even if they do sit next to each other. It's a lie, so what does it matter?)
ReplyDeleteStart make it start at a seemingly logical place, but one that, puts you in the middle of the table, so you can hold court. You don't want to be at the head of the table, then only a few can hear you, and the rest will try to kill eachother with butter knives to try to sit closer to you. And while entertaining, somebody's gonna pull out a spork and then the cops will have to be called.
Just seat all the women around you my good man. Husbands and boyfriends who bring their women anywhere near you just expect to lose them anyway, right?
ReplyDeleteYou give your guests a table to sit at when you host dinners?!? And what... I suppose you give them CHAIRS to sit on TOO?!?
ReplyDeletePut the desert on the card table.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably too late, but you could use the Presidential quiz on Sporcle.com. He who names the fewest presidents gets sent to the little kids table.
ReplyDeleteI'm late to every blog today! I was going to suggest cheapest wine and musical chairs.
ReplyDeleteHmm...how about giving your guests a short trivia quiz about your blog? Winners choose their seats.
It's probably over by now, and at least 4 couples have gone home mad. My suggestion, though, would have been to set the ugliest couples at the card table. It it's a mixed couple (ugly dude, hot chick) flip a coin
ReplyDeleteI was gone all day today ---please, please tell me you went with the thunderdome idea! It's such a great visual, and Tina Turner is just icing on the cake (and you know how I love Tinas)
ReplyDelete"I find that if I can dictate the pace and content of the conversations, it's a lot more fun for all."
ReplyDeletesnort!
anxious to hear how you worked this all out. for the sake of your guests, of course. what an uninteresting dinner party it would be if this seating arrangement thing went awry!
I can't believe I read all these history books yet never realized that peasants used card tables!
ReplyDeleteUse the good chairs at the small table, and the folding chairs at the good table... that way it's fair, and no one is happy...
ReplyDeleteThe party is over at this point but will add that you are the host. Being the host means you sit at the head of the good table. The rest is solved with place cards. Seat your friends who need to try harder at the card table. Duh.
ReplyDeleteToo late for this solution...and I'm not going to be funny, but this is what I've done in the past. I throw dinner parties quite often. Usually for 12 - 16 people. My dining room is not large enough for that many. I bough 3 rectangular folding tables from Target online...so they deliver them to your door. I arrange them in a U shape, so that way no one feels left out of the conversation. So...there's my practical solution without any too cool for school humor.
ReplyDeleteI do like the musical chairs idea...I may try that at my next shindig.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to think about how to help with your dilemma but I can't stop drooling over the food!
ReplyDeletedang, now I'm hungry.
Thanks for all the great ideas.
ReplyDeleteAnd the stupid ones too. It was pretty much every man for himself.
I would have put someone at the card table who is constantly being placed at kiddy tables. Someone with real issues about it.
ReplyDeleteHilarious.
Book clubs, dinner clubs, man I feel like I should be putting on an evening gown and extending my pinky finger just READING your blog.
ReplyDeleteUrban Blond - if you're not doing the pinky finger thing while reading my blog please do so.
ReplyDelete