As someone with no children I know gender reveal parties are like getting stuck in a bear trap surrounded by your loved ones. Everyone gathers round as you find out the gender of the human growing in the womb using your own creative technique. Pop a balloon with blue or pink confetti. Light a firework with specific color smoke. Waterboard the doctor until they reveal the gender under duress. No matter what method you use the end goal is always the same, you cheer and celebrate now knowing the gender.
But here’s the M. Night Shyamalan twist. You’re supposed to cheer the same amount whether it’s a boy or a girl. So why do gender reveal parties and this whole celebration exist? Here’s another Shyamalan twist. They exist to test you in front of your loved ones to make sure you cheer appropriately no matter the gender.
Here’s another twist. Gender reveal parties aren’t really celebrations. They’re poker matches. Professional level poker is highly reliant on the ability to read your opponents. You read the players not the cards. Everyone’s quiet. Phone cameras are recording you. Technology is so good that every one of your micro-expressions is captured on film. The gender is revealed in whatever corny, magical way you guys decided on. Everyone cheers! But all eyes are on you. Are you cheering enough? Is it genuine cheering? Would you have been cheering harder if it were the other gender? These thoughts are going through the heads of all your loved ones. You have to cheer the appropriate amount to convince everyone that you’re genuinely happy with the gender results and that you would have cheered equally if it turned out to be the other gender.
That’s when you reveal your twist. You actually told the doctor to fill the balloon with the wrong color confetti. So everyone just cheered for the wrong gender. You break out the mythical second balloon no one knew existed. This is your moment. Your significant other is probably pissed that you kept this all a secret but most likely just jealous they didn’t think of it. You pop the second balloon revealing the true gender, the opposite gender of the first balloon. Now the table is turned, you judge everyone else’s reaction, are they cheering enough? You cheer harder the second time around but now no one knows if it’s because you preferred this second gender or if it’s just because it’s the true gender and you support your child no matter what.
Here’s another twist. In the 1920s pink was a color for boys because red was a color for men and so a lighter shade of red (pink) represented boys. So if you use pink smoke or pink confetti you might confuse all the adults that lived through the 1920s. If pink comes up a good strategy is to break out into hysteria saying you still don’t know the gender. Wives love when husbands adopt this strategy.
Another twist. Best way to beat someone in a poker match, poison their drink as seen in James Bond, Casino Royale. Chances are you were just poisoned by a family member at the gender reveal and now you only have a couple minutes to live. Play it cool though.
Last twist, you saw Casino Royale and you knew to prepare. Against your significant other’s wishes you’ve been injecting yourself with a non-lethal amount of poison every night in the garage to build up your immunity to all poisons. The tetratodoxin has no effect on you. You eat pufferfish for breakfast. If your family members were trying to follow the Haitian custom of turning you into a zombi they are going to be sorely disappointed. Probably was the in-laws…
The gender reveal party is in shambles when you reveal the never expected final final twist. The party planner of the entire event was M. Night Shyamalan. He was so incredibly expensive to hire and create all these twists that you are now in unfathomable debt.
My god! Another twist! You are in even more debt because you watched the movie Junior starring Arnold Schwarzenegger 6 months ago. Inspired by Arnold you maxed out every credit card the world has to offer in an effort to be the first biological man to be pregnant. You reveal to your wife you’re not fat, you’re pregnant. You bring out a third balloon. This balloon reveals the gender of the child inside your man womb. Nobody cheers, your wife is already on the phone with a divorce lawyer. Your parents are staring off into the abyss wondering why they created you. You can’t use a broom in grass so you’re picking up three balloons worth of blue and pink confetti out of the lawn one piece at a time. You’re 6 months pregnant, your back is killing you, to distract yourself you sing a hit by Chubby Checkers.
Come on, baby
Let’s do the twist
Come on, baby
Let’s do the twist
Take me by my little hand
And go like this
E-yeah, twist
Baby, baby, twist
Ooh yeah, just like this
Come on, little miss and do the twist