To feel irritated by invites to Pampered Chef parties?

[WashwithCare]

or tupperware or candles parties or Usborne books or whatever it is this time...

Yes, I know I could politely refuse, but I always end up feeling obligated to go, because it is my neighbour, or DD's best mate's Mum, or the Mum is feeling weepy or looking for some sort of specific favour from me...(usually canapes)....

So there I am, again, on one of my rare nights out, and I'm not sipping wine and eating olives in a fashionable bar whilst discussing politics - I'm sitting in someone's kitchen, listening to a lecture about the quality of the wax, whilst the display of hand painted candle holders flickers away in the corner. Then although there is apparently no obligation to buy, I will then feel obliged to spend 20 minutes dicussing the quality of the hand painting/perfume/ingenuity of this AMAZING kitchen gadget before orderng £35 "worth" of stuff I could have bought in IKEA for £3.50.

If people want to throw a party, why not just buy a wine box and a packet of peanuts and invite people to talk to each other. They don't even have to clear up before hand - I wouldn't mind. Remember, like we used to when we were students?

AIBU?

Yanbu. Yanbu at all!

A woman who lives over the road from me who I have never spoken to in 5 years invited me to her Jamie Oliver products party.

Wtf?

I didn't bother to decline the invite. I just completely ignored it .

God help us with these parties.

The worst, worst ones are Ann Summers. Especially when the hostess gets you to party games with a vibrator hanging between your legs on a piece of string whilst you run about.

Then after the ritual humiliation you are obliged to buy something called Pussy Lick or a whip, a bright blue vibrator or one with realistic foreskin action (I mean why, why would you need that, as if that is the most exciting thing about a cock and must be replicated fgs) or some ghastly underwear which is A grade polyamide and will disintegrate in the wash.

I went to a hen night which was an Ann Summers party once, the hen bloody fleeced us.

bloody aloe people parties are the worst, especially when followed up by the pyramid-scheme-persuading-messages on facebook, every bloody week...

rofl @ Casserole

At this precise moment I am supposed to be at a PC party

tell no one

really LOL at moondag story (have been there too).

Also LOL at OP.

It is JUST like that.

I always go as the hostess was one of the first peopel tot alk to em and include me when I was a new billy-no-mates down here.

I always end up doing the option 4: Spend more than anyoen else. Why oh why oh why...

am now no longer able to attend.

Am dying to meet up in wine bar with OP.

"So there I am, again, on one of my rare nights out, and I'm not sipping wine and eating olives in a fashionable bar whilst discussing politics - I'm sitting in someone's kitchen, listening to a lecture about the quality of the wax, whilst the display of hand painted candle holders flickers away in the corner."

If anything, your fashionable bar/olives/politics scenario is even less appealing than the kitchen/candle/lecture one, so I reckon you are being unreasonable. If you'd be doing something actually fun and interesting with your time instead, I'd think differently.

there isn't even a FECKING wine bar in the town I live in, population 70,000

Agree

I'm rarely invited to any of these parties that my friends throw, as they know about my loathing of them...which suits me as I don't have to buy overpriced crap which I could buy in Tesco or Ikea for a quarter of the price. If I do get invited, they quickly add "you really don't have to buy anything", which is just as well, as I never do.

Bah humbug

Lol at wine bar. Was talking about wine bars today on another thread, I said I find it difficult to actually say the word wine bar without thinking I am a character in a 80s sitcom like Just Good Friends.

I am actually going out tonight to a wine bar for dinner (not just olives). It is called Montpellier Wine Bar, in Cheltenham. How poncetastic can you get? They probably won't let me in unless I have a lurex jumper dress with shouldr pads in.

There I was have a right old laugh at thread (PMSL at knobs for £3) when blast from the past Montpellier Wine Bar!!!
Getorfmoiland I use to live across the road (house on the roundabout) so give it a wave for me. It's actually quite a nice wine bar and you definitely have to wear shoulder pads.

Ha! I bet you had a right old time living there, stones throw from the bars of Montpellier. Hopefully we don;t get too trollied and end up in the Prom Club (you must know that place.

Last time went there I asked for a glass of cava, got withering look from barman, 'sorry, modom, we only sell champagne' lol

I'm sure I remember a Mumsnet thread about just such a party. Someone - Saltire??? - actually wanted to go but was miffed because she thought she was an afterthought; the invite had arrived unfeasibly late. We were all like this and telling her not to be so sad.

I have been invirtd to two candle parties and two pampered chef in the last year.

As if I can't think of better ways of spending money than candles and ladles at £20 a pop.

LMFAO @ all the responses...

Everyone is invited round to mine. I have a few good bottles of St Emillion, and will be happy to give a 2 minute power-point presentation on the quality of my IKEA Cinnamon fragranced candles (togehter with an all inclusive lighting demonstration). There is no obligation to purchase (obviously). However if you don't, we will all discuss how mean you have been as soon as we sober up.

Nearly choked on a grape at "realistic foreskin action" :-) :-) :-)

Urghh I threw up on angel station the morning after an ann summers party. I had had two cans of orange fanta in an effort to 'cure' my hangover so the puke was luminous.

I told the poor man that stopped to ask if I was ok that I had morning sickness....

Err, what exactly is Pampered Chef???

I've never been to a PC party that didn't have wine and plenty of it. You've been going to the wrong parties . I remember a really hilarious Mary Kay makeup party where the wine flowed freely and we all sat around a dining room table applying makeup on ourselves... everyone looked spectacularly fabulous.

Just say "no"

Replying to the original post, I am in agreement.

I mean, what a load of shit talking about beauty products or whatever all night, usually coinciding with a reality TV final.

I went to one recently and got a little bit tipsy and managed to lower the tone with lots of sexual innuendo and crassness. But really it was crap and needed livening up!

YANBU. I went to a Virgin Vie one. It was an old friend who was trying to make a go of it so I felt that I should support her. I ended up feeling obliged to buy the most expensive bottle of bubble bath known to man.

I bought a flat stone and when it 'aged' gotdirty-- dh said he didn't want any food near it so it's lived in the bottom of the oven ever since to the gasp of the last PC party consultant I went too.

The stoneware I just don't get. I have Le crueset stoneware that is glazed so I don't have to have many dishes as I can use them for everything from rice puddings to lasagne's to stews. How can you mix sweet/savoury with the unglazed PC stuff?

Plus you can freeze the glazed stuff and put straight in the oven. I don't think you can so this PC stuff.

Also they say that they are the only people to sell stoneware well, we have Denby and Le Crueset in our house and the Le crueset came mostly from TK Maxx so not expensive at all.

The bamboo spoons have rectangular handles and are the most uncomfortable spoons I have ever used to stir.

The amazing chopper thing my friend sells in her kitchen shop for half -yes HALF- the price.

So no, I won't be going to anymore PC parties and entirely share the OP's irritation at them.

The Amazing Chopper is Amazingly Crap

I don't like them.I feel they are a kind of emotional blackmail,playing on people's goodwill to their friends.there seem to have been an explosion of them recently.As well as friends , you seem to get invited by people who normally wouldn't even piss on you if you were on fire.

Oh and the consultant KEEPS RINGING ME!!!