Birthday news

I'm sure you're all terribly concerned about how my birthday went, so I'll share. The day itself was remarkably calm. One old high school pal called to wish me a happy day (damn her, she remembers every year) and a current friend dropped off a present and took me to dinner. All-in-all, a good day. I was a bit nervous, though, as my coffee shop crowd did NOTHING -- not even a Happy Birthday wish. It's not that I wanted fanfare, but I know how they are and it made me suspicious. Still, Friday came and went with no surprises.

Saturday morning, though, was a different story. As usual, I headed to the local coffee shop to while away the morning. Gradually, the regular crowd drifted in. I noticed that attendance was a little larger than most Saturdays, but I thought nothing of it. At least not until it was too late. Suddenly it became apparent they were throwing me a surprise party Saturday morning. This would have been bad enough, but they weren't going to let me off with a small, dignified affair. No, they hung streamers and various other decorations, brought out a cake with candles, and made the whole coffee shop grind to a halt to sing Happy Birthday! Did I mention it was business as usual at the shop itself? That means total strangers were coerced into singing to me as well!

Then there were the presents. Now I've got no complaints about presents (still waiting on blogosphere presents) and I did appreciate the crossword puzzle book (Will Shortz is my hero) and beer mugs. That, though, wasn't good enough for the coffee crowd. No, they had to get cute and adopt a theme. What was the theme? Wrinkles! No, no the facial kind -- the clothes kind. You may not know this, but some folks say I have a "wrinkled clothing" problem. My contention is that I don't have a problem with wrinkles -- everyone else has a problem with wrinkles. I'll just say it; I don't iron. Whenever I have this discussion, other folks always want to give me hints (buy certain fabrics, put your shirt in the dryer with a wet cloth when you get out of the shower, etc.) about how to avoid wrinkles without the hassle of ironing. They miss the point. It's not the ironing per se, it's just that I don't care if my clothes are wrinkled. Sure, on certain formal occasions I might try to be less rumpled, but on a daily basis no one has convinced me that smoother is better. I tell people that, but they still don't get it. I even had one person jokingly offer to do my ironing for a month as a Christmas present. Even if that offer were made, I wouldn't accept it. I honestly would be no more happy if my clothes were ironed totally free of charge every day. It's weird, I know, but I swear it's how I feel.

Anyway, my friends don't accept that, so the "themed" presents all reflected my "wrinkle problem". First, I got an ancient (looked like 1960s) travel iron. Then there was a portable steamer thingy from the same era. This was followed up by a more modern iron, that happened to not work any longer, and a can of heavy starch and a bottle of wrinkle release spray. The highlight, though, was a nifty polyester leisure suit -- no wrinkles to worry about there. They were all really tickled with their efforts. I'm just biding my time until the opportunity for revenge presents itself. I wonder if they ever saw the South Park episode where Cartman plots his revenge on Scott Tenorman. Hmm ...

So that was my birthday. I won't say it was my favorite, but it was memorable.