It seems that nearly every month a baby shower leads to some sort of disaster, injury, or even death. A few weeks ago, two people died in a stunt gone awry when their plane crashed, while another was killed when a small cannon exploded at a baby shower in February. These tragedies occurred within weeks of a baby shower in Florida that ended in widespread destruction when a man used an explosive called Tannerite — a legal, over-the-counter explosive usually used for firearm practice — in his reveal. The stunt resulted in a ten-acre wildfire and temporary burn ban.
Tannerite was also the explosive of choice in a gender-reveal stunt that took place this past Tuesday in Kingston, New Hampshire. No injuries were reported, but the Washington Post notes that the blast — the result of 80 pounds worth of the explosives — reverberated across several towns, left cracks in the walls of nearby homes, and turned the local tap water brown.
“To find out it was a gender reveal — it was extreme,” Sara Taglieri, whose dinner was interrupted by the cataclysmic explosion, told the Post. “You are not expecting pictures to fall off your wall at 7 p.m. while you’re having dinner from somebody celebrating having a baby.” Taglieri and her husband claim that the foundation of their home was also cracked by the explosion.
As we’ve noted before, there are probably plenty of baby showers that don’t end in infernos or fatal wounds, but it’s high time folks start erring on the side of caution. I mean, the queen of ostentation herself, Katy Perry, was happy to stick her husband’s face in some pink frosting for her gender reveal—might we not look to her for this one?