Things That Should Fall Out Of A Piñata At A Cinco De Mayo Party

26) Gravy

25) Coupons for candy

24) Pictures of people hitting a piñata from a different piñata party. Everyone will assume they are from your piñata party and it will come across as very clever

23) Dozens of smaller piñatas

22) Sausage links simulating piñata entrails

21) Slips of paper, each with a word that rhymes with piñata: regatta, ricotta, stigmata, sonata… that’s about it actually

20) Bygone knickknacks that someone sentimental might pick up and say, “Oh, this would be lovely on the mantel… if it hadn’t been beaten into pieces”

19) Already scratched lottery tickets

18) Pepper spray

17) Invitations to next year’s piñata party

16) A treasure map with intricate instructions that, once solved, lead to a grave in the yard where partygoers dig hoping to find buried treasure, but instead find a second piñata that is hung in the tree and beaten, breaking open to reveal another treasure map

15) 23 tangled Slinkies

14) Pamphlets detailing the history of piñatas

13) 8 pounds of tartar control toothpaste with micro crystals

12) Newspaper accounts of piñata accidents throughout history

11) The five-course meal everyone was promised once they finished busting open the piñata, with utensils

10) Dripping honey

9) Angry bees that devoted their lives to collecting the pollen to make the honey that was used for a piñata gag

8) One nickel

7) Oxygen

6) Enough gasoline to fill a Chevy Tahoe SUV ($122.61), resulting — when the piñata eventually busts open and spills gasoline all over guests — in a fruitful ethics discussion/fistfight about what’s the responsible-sized vehicle to drive

5) Thousands of spiders, each with tiny wooden sticks attached to them, to defend themselves against whoever kept smacking them about inside the piñata

4) Lasagna

3) A bear trap

2) Ninja — blindfolded, armed, paranoid at having just fallen from a tree to find herself surrounded by the enemy

1) Gift certificates for “3 Good Whacks At Piñata”

Jon Methven is the author of This Is Your Captain Speaking, which can be pre-ordered here. He can be reached here, or follow him on Twitter @jonmethven. Photo by jeffk.