Burning Down the House

Recently I, along with a couple of friends, attended a house warming party hosted by a friend we used to work with. We hadn’t seen him for a while and we were looking forward to seeing him and his new digs. That was until we realised it was going to be 42 degrees in a still smoke hazed Melbourne.

Upon arrival (after negotiating the street maze of the estate) we walked into what could have been regarded as house-sized pressure cooker. In a tiny two bedroom house, approximately 25 people ate, drank and celebrated as best as we could as we all sweltered and melted. There was no air-conditioning and you could be forgiven for thinking we were in Darwin while two pedal fans worked in overdrive to try and cool us all down.

It didn’t help the situation that people kept opening the back sliding door to get in and out of the house and letting the heat in to further create an uncomfortably sticky party. Nor did the lack of drinks help – there were four empty bottles of soft drink on the table and not a jug of water in sight.

A four-month old child and a heavily pregnant woman were also thrown into the mix and I was convinced that the pregnant woman was going to collapse from heat exhaustion. Luckily, she didn’t.

The three of us looked at other questioning what went so horribly wrong. Our friend was usually an amazing host who was always well stocked with food and drink. He knew how to host a great party. So what changed? My friend put it down to our friend’s new girlfriend – she clearly wore the pants and didn’t know how to host a proper party. I had to agree, the girlfriend clearly didn’t know how to host, especially for three Italians who always supplied too much at their own parties.

The three of us made our pleasantries and went off our merry way after realising that even sitting in front of a fan was not enough to stop perspiration from dripping off our legs. As we manoeuvred our way back through the estate maze, we headed back to my place and took advantage of the cool change that had started to come through still perplexed at the events that had unfolded.

It certainly was one of the hottest housewarmings I’d ever been to in every literal sense of the word.