HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Every time I say that, I feel like "Frosty the Retarded Snowman"
Alright, a holiday breakdown in the Key of Me. I went last week to a junkyard and yanked two rims off a Crown Vic to replace the bent rims on mine. At the same time, and much to the chagrin of my friend who was foregoing sleep after a night shift to help me, I perused the selection, collected parts I'll probably never need but wanted to have on hand, and posed with a baby picture I found in the back of a car so I can yell, without any hesitation, "DAT'S MAH BLACK BABY!"
Other than that, the week was quiet. Went out and got pissed on Saturday because I had nothing better to do with my weekend. Went over to Ray's last night for our weekly male bonding experience over a bunch of TV Cartoons with a twisted sense of humor. Couldn't get to sleep till 3 a.m. Woke up this morning, came into work, and here I sit.
See, some people would think that a birthday is a special time of year. A day that's dedicated to you and you alone, you know, if you don't count the other people in the world with the same birthday. My theory is a little different. A few years back, over many a drink and such while seated ina dingy bar with some friends and trying to act like my aim didn't suck and I meant to peg that guy in the cheek with a dart, I decided that there are very few birthdays that actually matter. The first one, obviously, as it is a joyous celebration of your rather undignified entry into the world (to quote a TV doctor, "90% of birthing mothers poo on the table in front of strangers. They never tell them to expect that one.").
After that, we have those wonderful childhood birthdays. Of course, those don't count. They raise the expectation that this day is somehow special and you deserve recognition. Meanwhile, as an adult, you start to feel depressed about it, and I think this is mainly due to the fact that you no longer are pleased by cake, ice cream, and various toys that you would later destroy to see how they work. So the next one that means anything is the 16th birthday, that one where they decide a teenager who thinks they know everything is responsible enough to be given a ton of metallic rolling death to control.
Now, if you're like me, the 18th birthday is special simply because it allows you to start smoking legally and stop hiding your filthy form of dealing with an oral fixation or calming nerves. I like that one. I think that upon that birthday guys like me should be given a free 100 cartons of cigarettes, as without them the odds are high that I would have already walked into a McDonald's one morning with a shotgun and fucked up everyone's McGriddle. So we're up to three birthdays that mean something now.
Fourth is the 21st, if for no other reason than you can finally stop relying on a fake I.D. or a homeless man to purchase booze. Yes, we know how this celebration occurs. If it was anything like mine, you wake up the next day with words written on your body. These are very likely crude words, in visible places, and don't matter to you half as much as the questions like "How'd I vomit there?" "Who are you?" and "Where are my pants?"
After that, we begin our slow march of mediocrity towards the end of our lives. If we're lucky we end up ina secure, stable job that we grow to hate. Around middle age we begin to wonder how our lives had been different if we really had said "Fuck it" after graduating high school and struck out for Mexico to live a life in a small cantina in the middle of nowhere, staring at a neon sign in a language you can't read and shoving dirty, torn one dollar bills into the g-string of an obviously overweight hispanic stripper/hooker named "Maria". Later you might try to deal with this by recapturing your youth, going to clubs and finding younger friends that make you forget how old you are and believe it's "trendy and hip" to hang out with guys your age. None of this, however, will ever change the fact that you're carrying around enough blubber to keep out nuclear winter, you're balding and hiding it with that spray-on canned hair, and you'll never be viewed by anyone as anything other than the creepy looking guy at the bar, staring at the dancers with want flashing in your beady eyes. Always staring. Always staring.
The final birthday that matters is the one before you retire. You're free! No more job, nothing but time to spend however you want it. Except you don't want to tip Maria anymore, and you can't keep up with this "new-fangled music". Wilford Brimley, playing the role of the Grim Reaper in my theory, is knocking at your door and staring you in the face, waiting. Always waiting. And besides, you don't care that much about looking hip. You care a lot more, however, about watching Matlock, chowing down on pudding, and taking care of your lawn by yelling at children. Most of the time you find religion and look forward to grandchildren, that is until the ungrateful little bastards you raised (hell, one of them doesn't even look like you, he looks more like Bill, from Shipping) shove you into an Old People Zoo and say that you'll love it.
Eventually you die, sitting on the couch in your old people condo. You probably have pureed something on your face. I don't know what it is. It comes out of a jar like baby food, and it's purple. PURPLE. That's a color rarely found in edible things in nature, but it can be fed to you. They bury you, they say you were a good person (though in all actuality you probably weren't...yet another reason I'm videotaping my own eulogy, and everyone has a good cry. Fin. Over...The End.
So, in other words...IT'S MY BIRTHDAY YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Peace, pups.
Alright, a holiday breakdown in the Key of Me. I went last week to a junkyard and yanked two rims off a Crown Vic to replace the bent rims on mine. At the same time, and much to the chagrin of my friend who was foregoing sleep after a night shift to help me, I perused the selection, collected parts I'll probably never need but wanted to have on hand, and posed with a baby picture I found in the back of a car so I can yell, without any hesitation, "DAT'S MAH BLACK BABY!"
Other than that, the week was quiet. Went out and got pissed on Saturday because I had nothing better to do with my weekend. Went over to Ray's last night for our weekly male bonding experience over a bunch of TV Cartoons with a twisted sense of humor. Couldn't get to sleep till 3 a.m. Woke up this morning, came into work, and here I sit.
See, some people would think that a birthday is a special time of year. A day that's dedicated to you and you alone, you know, if you don't count the other people in the world with the same birthday. My theory is a little different. A few years back, over many a drink and such while seated ina dingy bar with some friends and trying to act like my aim didn't suck and I meant to peg that guy in the cheek with a dart, I decided that there are very few birthdays that actually matter. The first one, obviously, as it is a joyous celebration of your rather undignified entry into the world (to quote a TV doctor, "90% of birthing mothers poo on the table in front of strangers. They never tell them to expect that one.").
After that, we have those wonderful childhood birthdays. Of course, those don't count. They raise the expectation that this day is somehow special and you deserve recognition. Meanwhile, as an adult, you start to feel depressed about it, and I think this is mainly due to the fact that you no longer are pleased by cake, ice cream, and various toys that you would later destroy to see how they work. So the next one that means anything is the 16th birthday, that one where they decide a teenager who thinks they know everything is responsible enough to be given a ton of metallic rolling death to control.
Now, if you're like me, the 18th birthday is special simply because it allows you to start smoking legally and stop hiding your filthy form of dealing with an oral fixation or calming nerves. I like that one. I think that upon that birthday guys like me should be given a free 100 cartons of cigarettes, as without them the odds are high that I would have already walked into a McDonald's one morning with a shotgun and fucked up everyone's McGriddle. So we're up to three birthdays that mean something now.
Fourth is the 21st, if for no other reason than you can finally stop relying on a fake I.D. or a homeless man to purchase booze. Yes, we know how this celebration occurs. If it was anything like mine, you wake up the next day with words written on your body. These are very likely crude words, in visible places, and don't matter to you half as much as the questions like "How'd I vomit there?" "Who are you?" and "Where are my pants?"
After that, we begin our slow march of mediocrity towards the end of our lives. If we're lucky we end up ina secure, stable job that we grow to hate. Around middle age we begin to wonder how our lives had been different if we really had said "Fuck it" after graduating high school and struck out for Mexico to live a life in a small cantina in the middle of nowhere, staring at a neon sign in a language you can't read and shoving dirty, torn one dollar bills into the g-string of an obviously overweight hispanic stripper/hooker named "Maria". Later you might try to deal with this by recapturing your youth, going to clubs and finding younger friends that make you forget how old you are and believe it's "trendy and hip" to hang out with guys your age. None of this, however, will ever change the fact that you're carrying around enough blubber to keep out nuclear winter, you're balding and hiding it with that spray-on canned hair, and you'll never be viewed by anyone as anything other than the creepy looking guy at the bar, staring at the dancers with want flashing in your beady eyes. Always staring. Always staring.
The final birthday that matters is the one before you retire. You're free! No more job, nothing but time to spend however you want it. Except you don't want to tip Maria anymore, and you can't keep up with this "new-fangled music". Wilford Brimley, playing the role of the Grim Reaper in my theory, is knocking at your door and staring you in the face, waiting. Always waiting. And besides, you don't care that much about looking hip. You care a lot more, however, about watching Matlock, chowing down on pudding, and taking care of your lawn by yelling at children. Most of the time you find religion and look forward to grandchildren, that is until the ungrateful little bastards you raised (hell, one of them doesn't even look like you, he looks more like Bill, from Shipping) shove you into an Old People Zoo and say that you'll love it.
Eventually you die, sitting on the couch in your old people condo. You probably have pureed something on your face. I don't know what it is. It comes out of a jar like baby food, and it's purple. PURPLE. That's a color rarely found in edible things in nature, but it can be fed to you. They bury you, they say you were a good person (though in all actuality you probably weren't...yet another reason I'm videotaping my own eulogy, and everyone has a good cry. Fin. Over...The End.
So, in other words...IT'S MY BIRTHDAY YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Peace, pups.