On Being a Birthday Party Princess

Something Awful has a wonderful forum thread led by member Assassin Princess, who is a children's party princess for hire. She describes her job, tells funny stories about the people who enlist her services, and encourages others to go into the party entertainment business.

The very poorest children, the ones whose parents are renting a princess because they could never afford to go to Disney World, those children are wonderful. They will sit and listen to you politely through the whole spiel. They know this is a special treat that their parents worked for and they don't intend to take a minute of it for granted. They're the kids I work extra hard for and remember. The middle and upper class children always have a party full of little girls in those 80 dollar Disney store dresses, with all the accessories. The less well-to-do children's parties are always in normal clothes, though a lot of the children wear their church dresses for the occasion. It just breaks your heart to do a party for them, which means so MUCH to them, then turn around and do a party for little Sienna-Jayden-Madison, who is completely jaded by the age of four and can't even focus on a five minute story before she becomes bored and distracted. The parents of less well-off children tell us that their little girl will spend months talking about the time Cinderella came to her house. The very upper-class kids forget about the princess while she's still IN their house.

Many of her stories are funny, and others will make you go all verklempt. Assassin Princess is also a costume maker, cosplayer, comic book writer, and an artist. Her illustrations appear throughout the forum discussion, and yes, we get to see her in various costumes, too. Link -via Metafilter