Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCPQDNGRJAYHN7HK329JJE5

The blueprints spread across the kitchen table were, technically, a napkin from Chuck E. Cheese with a jam stain in the corner where the ball pit should have been. Bill had drawn the ball pit anyway, plus an arrow labeled DANGER, which Molly considered generous. The real danger was the parents. She traced the perimeter with a chewed pencil, marking the bouncy castle, the folding tables, the sagging streamers, and the sacred mound of gift bags stacked beside the piñata like tribute to a very small king. Twenty-two presents. Possibly twenty-three, if Aunt Deborah showed up, which she always did, drunk and bearing gift cards. Bill had bought clown costumes. This was the part Molly had been dreading, because Bill had bought them in a size that suggested he believed clowns were structurally hollow. "We're not clowns." "Everyone loves clowns." "Nobody has ever loved a clown." He folded the costume back into its bag with the wounded dignity of a man whose dreams were routinely audited. Molly softened, slightly, and slid him the napkin, tapping the arrow he'd drawn. They would go in as balloon artists. They would leave in eleven minutes, four seconds, and one stolen wagon, laden with wrapping paper and unearned joy, before the cake was even cut.