the next door pinata

I grew up in the 70s -- when if something could possibly be made into a craft project, we did it as a craft project in school: macrame, melted crayon art, shrinky dinks. And pinatas. I vividly remember several occasions when we had to stick gloppy gluey newspaper onto a balloon. Because this was the Midwest, that's all I knew about pinatas until much later in life.

There are a couple of stores in my neighborhood that sell very elaborate pinatas in just about any shape you can imagine. But even so, it was kind of disturbing to pull into my driveway this afternoon and see the party going on next door for one of my neighbor's grandkids. A group of people (kids and adults) circled around a life size Little Mermaid swinging from the tree, beating her with a stick. It really looked like a person, even with the tail. And why -- if you were a 4 year old who liked the Little Mermaid, would you want to see her smashed with a stick? Even if her guts would eventually disgorge candy? Ick, ick, and ick.