Dave T's Pros and Cons of Stuff Everyone Has: Birthdays
I turned 30 on May 26. I had a BIRTHDAY. And it inspired today’s post.
Don’t know what they are?
Yes you do. You do so know what they are.
For the purpose of this article, we’re discussing the keeping track/celebration of a birthday and not just having a day on which you were born, which is seemingly unavoidable.
Pros:
• The overwhelming pro of having birthdays is cake and presents and cards and attention and people singing all on your behalf. Especially when you’re a little kid and your birthday is like Christmas (Hanukah, Kwanza etc.) except only for you. Suck it, other kids!
• Birthday suits! (Yes, we could still be naked, but it wouldn’t have this great name. The idea that I could technically be wearing a suit and that you could see my wrinkle twins™ is so amazing to me.)
• Birthdays are a fun chance to take stock of where you are in life, if you’re doing well. Like, “I made my first million dollars before my 30th birthday! I’m doing all kinds of good!” (Unless you made that money selling drugs, selling slaves, or selling weapons to terrorists. Then you’re doing all kinds of bad.)
• Milestone birthdays are a way of defining your maturity in society’s eyes, and are something to look forward to. Driving at sixteen (at least in PA), voting at 18, drinking at 21, renting a car without getting taken advantage of at 25, running for President of the United States of America at 35, etc.
• If we didn’t have birthdays, we probably wouldn’t keep track of people’s ages at all. Which means all the laws based on age wouldn’t exist. The world would plunge into anarchy. Forty-two-year-old men marrying seven-year-old girls. Babies driving cars, drunk, and shooting guns and voting without really thinking about the candidates’ stances on the important issues. Senior citizens paying full price for bus fare. Chaos.
Total Pros: 5
Cons:
• There are certain family members we don’t even like but we’re obligated to buy gifts for them because it’s their birthday. Boo to that.
• Girls usually insist on going to expensive, swanky places with punny names for their birthdays, like a place that only serves cereal and Cosmos that’s called Chex and the City.
• As you get older, birthdays become depressing reminders that you’re one year closer to death and that everything is wrinkling and sagging (unless you can afford plastic surgery, in which case you probably look like a creepily smooth alien who’s always scared).
• Birthdays are a sad chance to take stock of where you are in life, if you’re not doing well.
• Some people don’t like a fuss made over them.
• After you turn 16, children’s birthday parties become four painful hours of screaming and running around and snot-crusted faces and “He took mine!”
• If no one does anything for your birthday, or if your boyfriend or husband forgets your birthday, you’ll probably contemplate suicide. (I didn’t include girlfriends and wives because they NEVER forget their boyfriends’ or husbands’ birthdays. It’s a biological impossibility.)
• Listening to lots of tone deaf people singing "Happy Birthday" in a lot of different keys can suck.
• Restaurant servers coming out of the kitchen clapping and singing their restaurant’s awful substitute for the "Happy Birthday" song so that they don’t have to pay royalties is one of my least favorite things ever. So, if you ever want me to stab you, tell our server at Chili’s it’s my birthday when I go to the bathroom.
Total Cons: 9
So, 5 pros, 9 cons. Birthdays are over. It’s about time. Thank goodness I got all of my 30th birthday presents and money before I made this decision.
I hope this means that from now on 50 Cent will be rapping “Go, shawty, it’s a Thursday. We gon’ party like it’s a Thursday. We gon’ sip Bacardi like it’s a Thursday. And you know we don’t give a f*ck it’s not a Thursday!”
'Til next time, Ciao!
Dave T
"Wrinkle twins" is a registered trademark of David Terruso.
If you use the term, you owe him a nickel.
Dave Terruso is half of the sketch comedy duo Animosity Pierre.