I felt that the punchbowl's speech was a marvelous comic counterpoint to the previous speeches, that, by appearing silly and pretentious made all of them seem more substantive and real. Ending the story there would have made it be a minor surreal masterpiece. But most of this impact was taken away by the bizzare behavior afterwards - that took the surrealness of the story over the top, and instead of the finely balanced piece I thought we had, it just became inaccessible.
Like most of the stories that I've heard on PC this month, this one started off and my mind went into "find the fantasy" mode.
Then the cat spoke, then the inanimate objects, then the concept of the party... spoke.
And then, like every snobbish brat I've ever heard, the punchbowl spoke. I didn't expect the shattering, I expected a ship. I *really* didn't expect the cutting.
The dead Irishman showing up put a good "Halloween" themed ending on it though.
Over all, +1 for making good points, +1 for keeping in the Halloween theme, -1 for aggressive use of force against a newly purchased party dish and -1 for the unnecessary seconds of "new scar creation."... oh, and +1 for reminding me to look at my navel!