Most folks will remember that I am not a huge fan of birthdays, but that is not to say that I do not appreciate them. I simply fall into the category of those that prefer to celebrate a little more quietly instead of organizing a big do.
This year, I decided to turn things up a notch, so today's post will be a little shorter, due do the ongoing festivities. Even as I type this, a lively round of Pin the Tail on the Donkey is going on in the living room, and hell, it is only 8h30 in the morning. Later on, once the police have left, I hope to incite a spirited game of running up and down the street carrying an egg in a spoon as fast as possible. Whoever drops the egg first then has to stand there and allow everyone else to pelt them with eggs. I may have to change the rules as we go; I will play it by ear.
A friend of mine had a birthday the other Sunday, and when I was sending him a greeting, I discovered the number of times he has celebrated his birthday directly on Easter Sunday. I found that particularly cool, for some reason, and that outweighed the fact that even though my birthday sometimes occurs during the Easter season, I STILL have not had a birthday falling directly on Easter Sunday. My friend is not yet half my age, and he has just had his 3rd birthday on Easter.
These kinds of facts are extremely important to me, and I really cannot explain why. Perhaps it is just my fascination with unusual trivia. When I was in elementary school, there was kind of an unwritten rule that when you had a birthday, you brought cupcakes to school to share with the entire class. Back then, the world was a safer and nicer place. The mothers apparently coordinated this effort pretty well, because there were ALWAYS enough cupcakes for everyone.
It was always fun when several students had birthdays in the same month, since that increased our sugar intake. Once in awhile, I thought about all the students who had birthdays in the summer. They never got to bring cupcakes to school.
Likewise, the kids that were born on the 25th of December always seemed to get a kind of raw deal, when considering present receiving opportunities.
I actually have a friend who was born on the 1st of April, and I kind of regret the fact that I never got to discuss this with her. (During those cupcake years, April Fool's Day was also a pretty big deal.)
When I was in college, I took a course called Probability and Statistics. This was to fulfill the mathematical requirement of my degree work. Math and I were not always the best of friends, and rather than bring up those unpleasant memories, I will simply say that had it been my decision instead of my mother's, I would not have brought cupcakes to Trig, Pre-Calc, and Elementary Analysis.
On the first day of my prob-stats course, the professor stood at the front of the room and bet us that at least two of sitting in the classroom shared the same birthday. We all scoffed at the statement, and we laughed as we went through about three-quarters of the students, confirming birthdays.
The professor found a match on the second to last student, and I must say that it was a pretty cool party trick.
At that time, I had never met anyone that shared the same birthday as me. From time to time in my childhood (or even adolescence), I would receive a little list of facts with my birthday card, which provided trivial (but interesting) information. For example, the sheet listed the price of milk or a gallon of gasoline from one's birth year. This allowed you to see how things have evolved.
Inevitably, the list also provided the names of famous people who shared the birthday. I was always disappointed, because there was no one "cool" on my list. True, in some circles, JP Morgan is probably considered very cool, but at the time I was seeing the information, I did not know who he was. Keep in mind, I was rather young. Cool for me would have been, "Mozart was born on 17 April," or something like that. So, my lists (which were rather short) only included a few people, most of which had died way before I was even born.
In my 20s, I discovered an author who I immediately connected to. There was a time when I simply was saying, "All of his works are my favorite." Then one day, I found out that his favorite football club is the same as mine. I had to sit down when I realized that on top of all that, he and I have the same birthday. Finally, somebody cool. (I recently saw the series that he wrote, "State of the Union," and think it is brilliant.)
It is probably no surprise that I actually dreamed about the guy earlier this week (during the birthday countdown sleeps). It was a little odd that Nick Hornby would approach me in the dairy section of my local Rewe, but the fact that he reminded me to pay close attention to what kind of milk I was buying was particularly surprising. I regularly confuse the 1,5% and 3,5% milk in the dairy case, because all the milk bottles have the same color and are stored side by side. You are probably thinking, "gee, the guy was born on the 1st of April instead of the 17th" but in fairness, when you start grabbing the milk from the shelf, you assume that they are all the same. Unfortunately the milk elves (otherwise known as the employee that I most certainly would not have given a cupcake to back in third grade) are a little casual when they are restocking. Thus, sometimes I am sitting at home thinking, "gosh, this 1,5% milk tastes particularly whole, only to find out that it is, indeed, whole milk (3,5% in Germany).
At any rate, as the dream continued, Nick suggested that I get extra big eggs (for the spoon run later today) as I moved on through the store to finish my shopping.
So, around the age of 25, I found that I share a birthday with a cool famous person, and that has fulfilled one element of the birthday bit.
A few years ago, I was fortunate to be standing next to two friends who discovered that they shared the same birthday. The 7 year old kind of took it in stride, but what I found more intriguing was how Mono reacted. OK, "react" is probably too strong a word. However, Mono, who also falls into the category of "birthdays are not that big of deal," did remark quietly that he and SC were birthday buddies.
And suddenly I wanted a birthday buddy, too.
Fast forward to last November, when I was discussing my new job offer with my soon to be boss. "Bryan, I did not want to mention this in the interview, but you and I share the same birthday."
Of course I had to take the job, and I might even make him a cupcake.
Here's to celebrating as extravagantly or quietly as one sees fit.
keep the faith, buddy
bryan
No comments:
Post a Comment