Are Birthdays Supposed to Suck?

Today was a long, strange day. Lots of weird-ass stuff happened. I guess I'll start with announcing that tomorrow, the 26th is my birthday. Here is a new phenomenon. Facebook sends out an announcement to all of your friends. Friends that became your friend because it was fashionable to have lots of friends on Facebook, not because they really give a shit about you. I received a congratulations phone call from a guy I went to high school with and never really knew. He wanted to wish me a happy birthday because we were buddies in high school, right? I reminded him that we really didn't know each other back then, but when I saw the name, I figured what the hell, he can be my friend. I must be doing better than him because he didn't even remember that we weren't friends. How odd. He seems like a pretty nice guy now and I promised the next time I was in his town of Boise, we'd certainly look him up!

Next I get a Birthday wish from Ruth Glovemaker. Ruth was that quiet little girl that always knew the answer to the tough math questions in 4th grade. Mrs. Hays was our teacher and she was way old then. Ruth's claim to fame is that she married one of my club brothers after high school, but he has sadly since died of complications during heart surgery, ouch! Ruth writes, "Happy birthday wishes, may you enjoy your birthday". Nice huh? Now remember, I really don't know Ruth, not then, not now. When she first came on board with Facebook, I offered my condolences and told her I'd love to be her Facebook friend. She asked me to tell her about my life and I gave her the Cliff notes version in about one long paragraph.

So in reply to her birthday wishes, I said, ..............ready? "Thx Ruth." I knew when I was writing "thx" that I should have spelled it out, because she unloaded on me with, "Could you spare the 2 words"? That's when I realized I was dealing with an old woman that has lost her life long love, so I replied, "Why the sarcasm and anger, Ruth"? Well, you would have thought I'd had called her mother a whore! She unloaded on me that she thought that by now I would have mellowed, but no, I'm still the quick mouthed prick I was back then. Needless to say, I cancelled out our Facebook friendship, Jeeeeez!

Next, there is a woman that I've been talking to for the past week or 10 days, but have not yet met. Every time I try to make a date with her, she is either busy or I am. We seem to get along great on the phone, except when the topic of age comes up and she simply explains that she will not talk about age. Well, I didn't think it was because she was really much younger and was trying to sneak in with the big kids, just claiming to be 57. The last one that was really 70 said she was 57 too. That must be the comfortable age for liars. At one point we had been talking about my school reunion and she volunteered that she had just gone to her #%^*$## reunion and it was awful. I asked her to repeat which reunion and she reminded me she doesn't discuss age. She wouldn't tell me the ages of her children or even her grandchildren. Not even her soon to be ex-husband's. I tried every trick I knew. What year did she move to AZ? How old was she when she moved here, but I waited 30 minutes to ask the second part of the question. Even her last name was an alias, as it turned out.

As a reader goes along, you're probably thinking, what's the big deal, all women lie about their ages? Well, they really don't. Not the ones with integrity. My age, as much as I'd prefer to be 57 is still 63, at least for the next 90 minutes! Getting back to lying Lois...

I called Lying Lois at about 1:30 and asked her if she'd had lunch yet. She said no, but was obligated to go to visit a sick friend in a nursing home. (Dead giveaway, right?) I never thought of it until I met Lying Lois. She said she'd be happy to meet me at Paradise Bakery at 4 PM though. Great, it was a date!

Promptly at 4, I walked into Paradise Bakery at Tatum and Shea and started searching for Lying Lois. She was nowhere to be found. She claimed everyone swore that she looked just like her pictures, but better, but I couldn't find her anywhere. Then, sitting outside, all alone on their patio was a woman waving to me. I had walked right past her on the way inside and she didn't alert me. I guess she wanted a closer look to see if I was going to be okay to drink a Coke with.

I approached her table and it was like 2 old friend finally reuniting, but I had never met her before. She did a quick twirl and even slowed down to let me view her butt. She asked me what I thought and I, always the gentleman, told her she looked great, but what I wanted to say was, "You look really good for a woman about 70, with a flat mushy butt and skin that hangs down everywhere on her body except her face that has recently been pinned back to stretch out all of the fine wrinkles that old age causes. She sat down and it was my job to objectively access the situation. As she spoke of the atrocities that her soon to be ex-husband put her through, I was observing the tissue like, paper thin skin on her face was was clearly pulled towards her ears. Her hair was that dark brownish red color that you see on died hair and there was a full inch of white hair at the part. When she held up her hand and smoothed out something on her face, the back of her hand resembled a man's freshly shaved scrotum. Everything sagged on her and I knew I'd be erasing her name from my new Blackberry on the way home.

Happy Frickin' Birthday, huh?