Another Birthday

Another year rolls by and another birthday. Since this is no big milestone like last year, the family asks what I would like to do. Certainly nothing like last year when my mom gave me a surprise party. Although I wasn't surprised, it was a really nice party. I had been terrified that she was going to have planned something weird. Like male strippers. Which have shiny, overly tanned skin and scare me. And drive old ladies crazy where they start hollering out all inappropriate things. That scares me too. I just don’t need to know those things about my mother and her elderly friends.

Or she could have invited our friends with their current spouses along with inviting the ex-spouses to liven things up. That didn't happen either. This was probably also a good thing. Although not nearly as interesting or as much fun.

It was a really nice party. Although my mom was told that any liquor on the menu would be an extra charge. So even though I am her only daughter, she went the more economical route. Unfortunately with no liquor at a party, it tends to quiet the party down. It’s just not the same as when typically sober people start drinking and dancing on the tabletops. We all ate ham instead. Pork products do not tend to get people dancing.

Also it was very quiet. I had them turn on the speaker system to pipe some music in and liven things up a bit. It did some. But not nearly as much as liquored up ex-spouses. Then nobody sang me happy birthday because my son was having an epileptic fit unless he could eat some cake. So I told him to go eat the darn cake and he did. Then everyone wolfed down cake and forgot to light candles and sing. The cake had black frosting, so everyone had black teeth for the rest of the party which made for an interesting scene in itself.

Our friend’s boy ate a piece of cake that must have been a solid square foot and he sat in a diabetic coma for the whole party. He was with his girlfriend, who is in school with my son, and is subject to his personal commentary all day every day, and thus, she hates him. So she sat next to her beau while he was in the coma and made evil faces at my son, who was grinning happily because he elicited exactly the reaction he strives for.

My son sat at the table with my other son and his girlfriend, and spent the evening being a Russian immigrant with a heavy accent. No one other than his brother knew what he was doing. So my mom's old people friends just stared at him like he had three heads. But the Russian immigrant was very happy in spite of all the stares. No doubt glad to be away from his communist motherland.

I did get some really nice presents. Not the typical lot of gag gifts. I got this one beautiful shiny thing that I had no idea what it was. I looked at my friend and asked her what it was. She is not aesthetically challenged like me. She said to hang it on the wall and I could put some dried flowers in it or something of the sort. She then promised to take over that task for me. Which was very kind of her.

But that was last birthday. Since then I have spent the last year hearing my mom retell how much money was spent on giving her only daughter a birthday, and myself trying to forget a roomful of sober, geriatric, diabetics with black frosting stained teeth. I had nightmares for months of being caught in Night of the Living Dead and would awaken exhausted and petrified of my next milestone birthday. Then all my diabetic, black teethed friends will be even another ten years older. And scarier!

This year will be just a quiet one. Who needs a party? What could be better than supper at Captain Ds before I return home to continue waiting on the mountain of presents that I just know must be coming. I can spend the evening with my own family close by, along with a bottle of wine, a tabletop for dancing, and watch Bruce Willis save the world in Armageddon (the very best movie....Ever).