A mom thought she had snagged some bargain birthday decorations for her daughter’s party until she spotted one small problem.
Children’s birthday parties can be expensive. A poll of 404 women who were either pregnant or with at least one child aged up to 5, conducted by the parenting website What to Expect, found parents spend an average of $314 on their child’s birthday party.
Given that kind of outlay, it is understandable that moms and dads would try to ease the financial burden of their little one’s big day. That’s what Cassandra Colley from Ontario, Canada, was trying to do when it came to organizing her 2-year-daughter Maven’s party.
Maven is a big fan of the Australian animated series Bluey. She is not alone in that respect either. The Hollywood Reporter says that Americans watched an average of 1.19 billion minutes of Bluey every week this year.
That’s probably why Colley was so pleased with the Bluey-themed decorations she found online for a bargain price.
“We bought a party pack with a banner, plates and napkins off Amazon. It was $22 and was cheaper than buying all the pieces individually,” Colley told Newsweek.
Cassandra Colley’s discount ‘Bluey’ decorations. She told Newsweek she thought she had bagged a bargain.
Having decked the house with her discount Bluey decorations, Colley stopped to admire her handiwork. That sense of satisfaction would prove short-lived, though. “We didn’t notice it until after it was already hanging up,” she said.
As the party was just about to get started, one of Colley’s friends pointed at the banner she had spent time carefully hanging across the ceiling and asked: “What character is that? It looks weird.”
It is no big secret that nearly as many adults and kids watch Bluey. So it didn’t take long for Colley to spot the problem.
Among the familiar characters like Bandit, Chilli, Bingo and, of course, Bluey, was a pony-like character that Colley, and no other fan of the show for that matter, had ever seen before.
Though Colley’s nephew, who is 6, noticed the unusual edition, Maven and her young friends were oblivious to it. Thankfully, they were all able to laugh about it afterward, with Colley’s husband saying, “that’s what we get for buying the cheap one.”
The mystery character depicted in the decorations. Cassandra Colley told Newsweek she was pretty sure she had never seen this character on ‘Bluey.’
@call.me.cassey
“I wonder if it’s intentional or not? But I’ll likely never know,” Colley said. “I’m mostly just happy Maven was just too excited to see Bluey to notice.”
Though Colley was happy with how the party went, she said she “won’t buy something like this from Amazon again.”
The decorations were sold on Amazon through a third-party seller. Newsweek reached out to Amazon for comment. In the meantime, Colley has immortalized her experience with the rogue Bluey decorations with a TikTok video under the username @call.me.cassy.
“Honestly, I just thought it was a clean, funny thing that I got a giggle off and thought other people would too,” Colley said.
“I have since heard from other parents about similar incidents with other well-known characters, with much less… innocent… mistakes, ones that would really make the parents question their purchasing decisions.”
Parents might want to keep a close eye on their party decorations from now on.
