Five-Year-Old Misses Classmate’s Birthday Party, Gets Hit With $25 Bill
The parents of a five-year-old boy in Torpoint, England have been hit with a bill for nearly $25 after the boy failed to show up for a classmate’s birthday party, the Plymouth Herald is reporting.
Alex Nash’s Dad, Derek, says that just before the Christmas holidays, a classmate at school invited several kids, including Alex, to a birthday party to be held at the Plymouth Ski Slope which, according to its website, is a “large leisure facility & dry ski slope.” The facility also hosts catered birthday parties for children and teens.
According to Derek’s version of the story, the unnamed mother of the birthday boy, who for simplicity’s sake will be referred to as “Mrs. Dursley” for the remainder of this post, met with Derek face to face at the children’s school and invited Alex to her child’s birthday party, and Derek confirmed that Alex would be going.
“She saw me and asked if Alex was coming to the party. At this time I agreed and said that Alex was looking forward to it.”
However, some time later Derek realized that Alex and his sister, Lily, had made plans with their grandparents the day of the birthday party. Derek claims that he was unable to reach Mrs. Dursley to cancel.
“By this time we did not have a contact number, email, an address to let [the boy’s mother] know. So on the day of the party we asked Alex what he wanted to do; he chose to be with his grandparents.”
Derek claims that he and his partner, who asked not to be identified, kept an eye out for Mrs. Dursley in order to apologize, but they never heard from her. That is, until Alex came home from school last Thursday with a brown envelope sticking out of his backpack. Inside the envelope was a bill for £15.95 ($24.16 at current exchange rates).
Derek, of course, wasn’t pleased at getting a bill for his son’s absence at a birthday party, but he was equally unhappy about it being delivered via a kindergarten class.
“I then visited Alex’s school headteacher, who couldn’t apologise enough that one of the teachers had passed this on. She said she would remind all staff that this was a breach of protocol.”
When Derek tried to speak to Mrs. Dursley about the bill, she threatened to take him to small claims court.
“I would have sympathised with her about the cost of Alex not showing up, but I just can’t believe the way she has gone around it.”
It should be noted that, as of this post, only Derek’s version of the story has been reported. Mrs. Dursley has not publicly commented on the birthday party bill, nor has she returned phone calls or messages via social media for comment.
Do you believe Mrs. Dursley was in the right to send Alex home with a bill for failing to show up at her son’s birthday party? Share your opinion in the Comments below.
[Image courtesy of: Plymouth Herald]
