They Say It’s Your Birthday

by Paul Mikesell

I am indifferent about my birthday. I don’t talk about it and just hope that no one asks any questions about it. I think I’m down to four people who know what day I was born: my parents, my brother, and my girlfriend. Oh, and I guess the DMV does too.

When I was younger, the only thing I liked about my birthday was how close it was to Christmas. I had a friend in elementary school whose birthday was on Christmas Eve and was pissed when he only got one set of presents. I guess being a week and a half later helped me out gift-wise. When my birthday rolled around, there were never any surprises. I always knew ahead of time that each box wrapped in leftover Christmas paper would have a leftover Christmas present inside. It was nice because these were things I wanted, but sometimes I got pieces of things at different times. The worst was when I was six and got a Super Nintendo for Christmas. I had to wait until I was seven to get Super Mario World.

I used to have birthday parties, too. Once I realized my parents would be happy not having to deal with all the hassle, I immediately told them I didn’t want any more parties. That was when I was eleven. My family still give me presents, but now we take care of it all at Christmas. Under the tree at my parents’ house right next to the Christmas presents for everyone will be three items wrapped in newspaper with “Dave” written in permanent marker on the top. The first one will be a book my dad saw at Barnes and Noble that somehow relates to something I’m interested in. The next one will be a movie from my mom that I made an offhand comment about having seen during the last year. The last one will be a CD from my brother, which is usually the only surprising one as he can actually find some pretty cool stuff that I haven’t heard of. It has been like this the last fourteen years.

I guess my girlfriend treats my birthday like people with normal boyfriends do. The last couple years Alison has brought an ice cream cake back home with her and has bought me some new clothes and a video game that we could play together. It’s nice, but I don’t think I could handle that type of affection from more than one person. Last year Alison mentioned something about having some of our friends come over on my birthday. I shot down the idea right away. No one that I’ve met since middle school has asked about my birthday, so I don’t feel bad about not wanting anyone to know about it.

A lot of people look forward to turning certain ages because of the privileges they’ll get as soon as they are that magic number. They’ll plan their entire days around whatever it happens to be that year. Not me. Because of a combination of being busy and lack of interest, I’m managed to avoid all of these. I didn’t get my driver’s license the day I turned sixteen, I didn’t buy cigarettes and porno when I turned eighteen, and I didn’t get drunk on my twenty-first birthday because it was in the middle of the week and I had other important things going on. I’ll bet that when I turn sixty-five I won’t go and get the “Senior Discount” anywhere.

“I’m not planning on renting a car today,” I told Alison when she asked what I was going to do today.

“What about anything else?” she asked. “We’ve been together for three years now and you’ve never wanted to do anything for your birthday. You’re turning twenty-five. That’s an important age, right? And you don’t have any trouble going out and having fun with me when it’s my birthday.”

“You know what, I will do something special for my birthday. I’ll listen to that Beatles song about it being my birthday. And Alison, listen, you’re twenty-four right now. When it’s your thirtieth birthday, talk to me again about making a big deal out of your birthday and I think we’ll be seeing things the same way,” I said.

“That’s totally different.”

“Maybe in the reasoning behind it, but it’s still the same result. If I had my way, no one would make a big deal out of birthdays. How about everyone becomes a year older on January first? It’ll be a ‘new year’ for everybody.”

“Dave, your birthday is January fourth! You’re saying that you would stop being weird about all of this if we could just have your birthday three days earlier?”

I sighed and said, “No, that’s not it. Maybe there would be one big party because it was everyone’s birthday, but since everyone was having their birthday on this day, I still wouldn’t have to tell anyone about mine. And no one would care either, because they’d all be too busy celebrating their own birthdays! It’s genius because it means that we would never be having this conversation.” I knew to stop right here or else this would turn into a full argument instead of just me saying ridiculous ideas. “All right, I’m leaving for work now. Are you going in a couple of minutes too?”

“Yeah, I’m just about ready.”

“So I’ll see you tonight then.” I kissed her and then I walked out the door.

When I got to work, the first thing I saw as I was walking to my office was something going on in the break room. I peaked my head in and saw Phyllis and Stephen blowing up balloons and Katherine was putting up streamers. I glanced over to the wall on the opposite side of the room and started to breath heavily.
Happy Birthday! I read the sign up on the wall and started freaking out. How did they find this out? Did Alison tell someone? What if they went through my personnel file to find it? Maybe it was something I typed in some registration form online and they searched through my cache? New York Times? Amazon.com? Or what if it was the Pro Wrestling Confidential newsletter? I was less concerned with the larger implications of an intrusive search as I was with having to deal with an office full of people wishing me “Happy Birthday.”

As all of these possibilities were racing through my head, Stephen saw me and asked me how it was going.

“Oh, um…fine. Yeah, fine.”

“That’s good. You ready for the weekend?”

“Y-Yeah, I guess.”

“Me too. And I bet Debbie is too. Her birthday is tomorrow, but since none of us will be here, fingers crossed,” Stephen said as he raised his eyebrows and literally crossed his fingers, “we’re having the party for her at the end of the day today.”

“Oh, so all of this stuff,” I said as I pointed to the balloons and streamers, “is just for Debbie’s birthday?”

“Yep, four o’clock today. We’re going to have brownies, cookies, and some tofu ice cream.”

I was starting to calm down a little and I was able to collect my thoughts and be my normal self. “Wow. Let me tell you that I am very excited about this, but it looks like I’m going to have to be out of here a little after that. So I’ll tell you what, I’ll stop in, make an appearance and have something to eat, I mean, it’s Debbie’s birthday, it’s the least I can do.”

I walked away to my office and got to work. The rest of the day went down fine, although I did twitch every time I heard someone talk about the party. I started to get nervous again as four was approaching that maybe this party really was for me and Debbie was just a pawn in the game. Turns out it really was just for Debbie. I stopped in and had some of the tofu ice cream. Then I threw the rest of mine out and left for home.

I was only one block away from my house when I saw flashing lights behind me. I had only been pulled over once before and it was during the day. At night the lights looked much different, much more intimidating. “Oh dammit,” I said aloud. I pulled over to the side of the road, my own road, and starred at my house fifty-feet away as I waited for the officer to come over. After about a minute, he finally started to walk over to my car. He was about five foot six so he didn’t have to duck down much to be in my window.

“License and proof of insurance,” he said in the same tone that all police officers use.

I handed them over to him and asked, “Is there anything wrong officer?”

“Did you know that you have a burnt out taillight?”

The second lamest of traffic violations, it was right before getting a speeding ticket for anything less than ten miles over. At least this was a surprise to me so I didn’t have to lie to the police. “Oh, really? I didn’t know that. I will take care of that tonight.”

He continued to shine his flashlight on my license as if he were trying to decode something on it. “All right, well I still have to give you a warning for this. I need to fill out something so I’ll be back in a minute.”

A minute turned into six. While I was sitting there, the lights remained flashing in my rearview mirror. I kept looking at my house and thinking about how I was so close and now I had to deal with this. I watched Alison pull into the driveway and carry a box that was probably the ice cream cake into the house. That would probably help get rid of that tofu taste.

Finally, the officer came back over to my car. He said, “I put in everything and as long as you get this light taken care of as soon as possible, we shouldn’t have any more trouble,” he paused for a second and then added, “birthday boy.” He was having a great time with this. I was up to five people now.

I wasn’t mad, but something in me just decided to take one of the biggest risks of my life: make a joke to a police officer that had just pulled me over. “It shouldn’t be a problem, officer,” I said. “As soon as I get home, there should be a check from Grandma in the mail for twelve dollars. That should help buy me a new taillight.” I felt kind of bad for using Grandma in a joke, but in all honesty, until she died, she always was really good about getting birthday cards to people on time. I held my breath for a second after saying my joke, but once the officer started laughing I let it out and he let me go on me way. I drove the rest of the block to my house. I checked the mail and found a card from my parents, a Time magazine, and the cable bill.

Alison and I had a nice dinner of some leftovers and ice cream cake for dessert. It really did make up for that horrible tofu ice cream from earlier. Alison gave me my presents which were two new shirts and a dancing game for our Playstation.

We were finishing up the cake and Alison asked, “So was your birthday really all that bad?”

“Well, other than me almost having a nervous breakdown at work when I thought they were having a birthday party for me and me getting pulled over and made fun of by a police officer, it wasn’t that bad.”

“So next year we can have some other people celebrate with us?”

“Absolutely not.”