I owe you more than that, actually. Like an explanation about where I’ve been, for one thing, but mostly I’ve just had a bad case of So Much To Do I Didn’t Know Where To Start-itis.

This is the most recent column that ran. I’ll start catching you up.

*****

It all began when One Side bought a birthday cake.

Not to be outdone, the Other Side bought some ice cream.

The One Side escalated with sprinkles.

The Other Side countered with streamers.

One Side narrowed its eyes and hired a clown.

Gritting its teeth, the Other Side rented a bounce house.

The One Side exhaled sharply and booked Build-a-Bear.

The Other Side saw the One Side’s Build-a-Bear and raised it with four tons of snow for sledding in July.

The One Side consulted with a home equity lender and reserved a sunken pirate ship.

The Other Side ransacked Pinterest and handcrafted a “Game of Thrones”-themed shindig, claiming that its 5-year-old had demanded it.

The One Side sat down and wrote a check for $32,000 for a 4-year-old’s birthday party, because hey, how many times do you turn 4?

The Other Side did not répondez, even though the One Side said s’ilvousplaît, so the One Side sent the Other Side a bill for one-twentieth of a camel rental, a magician and a lollipop bar.

The Other Side refused to pay the bill and instead did the adult thing and dragged the whole mess onto Facebook so the entire world could pick A Side.

Which is good, because you need to pick sides when you want to play Red Rover at a party.

Except that the 4 year olds don’t play Red Rover anymore, because their parents need the room in the yard to re-create the Yellow Brick Road from “The Wizard of Oz,” complete with rented Munchkins.

So the rest of us on the sidelines have to explain to our kids why we’re only buying a cake for their birthday party, which is a hard sell after they come home from their BFF’s Cirque du Soleil extravaganza and wonder if we actually love them as much as BFF’s parents love her. This is a hard sell with a compound interest rate as there is an actual reality show telling our kids that if you really love them you’ll get Katy Perry to show up at Chuck E. Cheese next year.

Oh, and that $32,000 party? I exaggerated. It wasn’t for a 4-year-old. I know you’re breathing a sigh of relief, because that would be ridiculous to do that and it’s wrong to spend more than a down payment on a house for anything shy of major organ replacement.

Rest easy: those parents spent all that for a 6-year-old, which of course makes perfect sense. All of it for a 6-year-old, by the way, who rejected her nine-tier $2,100 birthday cake because the bird on it was purple, not blue. (It was really more of a periwinkle, so that kid should pay more attention when they cover colors on “Sesame Street” and totally should have cut that caterer some slack). Her mother proudly explained that the wee tot was “a bit of a perfectionist,” which is apparently some sort of code for “a bit of a spoiled git.”

There’s a wistful thought out there that extravagant kids’ parties have jumped the shark. Given that outrageous kids’ parties and their related reality shows are now a billion dollar business, I’m not optimistic.

But please don’t give them any ideas or the next party you attend? It’ll have a hammerhead tank.

• Ahwatukee Foothills resident Elizabeth Evans can be reached at elizabethann40@hotmail.com.

© E. Stocking Evans 2015