Hey Nineteen
This post was first made on November 28th, 2007, on Facebook.
So every morning I wake up at about 5:00 AM when my alarm goes off, only it isn’t my alarm, it’s the massive food trucks that are backing up to the University Catering loading dock that happens to be right outside my uber-expensive single dorm room. It so happens that these trucks’ highly obnoxious backing up sound (BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP) is the exact same sound as my Proton 320 Clock Radio (BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP). Now, I don’t want to bitch too much about this, but I’m going to because it’s highly necessary. Whoever drives these trucks really relishes backing up. I mean, it’s probably his favorite thing in the universe, because every morning I get to listen (BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP) as this wretched teamster practices his hobby for a good 20 minutes without a single break. How long could it possibly take to back up a truck!? I’m trying to sleep, for God’s sake.
That got a bit ranty, let me just hit the reset button here…
So every morning I wake up, crawl out of bed, slink over to my computer, and check my email, hoping that perhaps one of my blogs has garnered more comments or that my picture on hotornot.com got a rating above 3.3. Usually I get one or two emails, nothing particularly exciting, so you can imagine my excitement yesterday when I checked my email and found out that literally everyone in the world had posted on my wall to wish me happy birthday. That was surprisingly awesome, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for being glad I was born. Trust me, you’re not even half as happy about it as I am.
The biggest question I kept getting on my birthday was, “Do you have anything special planned?” and I guess that the people who were asking me this didn’t understand that I’ve planned something special a grand total of maybe two times in my life. I stopped having proper birthday parties when I was in middle school*, I think, and for the next few years my family would celebrate by taking me and a few friends to a movie and then having Mexican food or something, and by the time I got to high school my birthday had become so low key that I usually didn’t even tell most people about it (this is largely because the Sprague High School Band tradition was for everyone to sing very loudly and poorly to whoever had a birthday, usually cued by someone shouting, “HEY GUYS, GUESS WHO’S BIRTHDAY IT IS…!”). I managed to make it through my 18th birthday without being humiliated by public singing, which I saw as a victory, if not a slightly lonely one.
*I add these footnotes a lot, and I don’t intend it to be a gimmick, it just keeps happening. Anyway, when I was in 4th grade, I was having one of my last few birthday parties with maybe a dozen friends. Everybody got me nice 4th grade boy things, like cap guns and Lego sets and toy cars, except Steven. Steven was arguably richer than any of my other friends (gated community style rich, I mean), but there was no present from him on the table. Once I’d opened all the other presents, he shuffled over and handed me a folded $10 bill. At first I was thrilled, because, hey, $10!, but then as I unfolded it I found out it was some recruitment tract from a local church that was designed to look like a $10 bill when it was folded a certain way so people would pick it up. That was it. That was all he got me. Early on in high school, Steven got into drugs and dropped out. I hate you Steven, I hate you so much, that gift royally sucked, and I will never, ever, ever forgive you.
Thanks to the fact that nearly all my friends are on Facebook now, though, my birthday this year was a fairly public occurrence. Everywhere I went, people wished me a happy birthday, and despite my best efforts to prevent it the members of my Freshman Interest Group sang to me, but I took it like a man and I feel stronger for it. I ate stir-fry with friends and watched Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Quest of the Delta Knights – a classic!) and then returned to my dorm to find that the guys in the hall had taped every sign they could find onto my door:
It's like a bulletin board threw up!
Long story short, the entire birthday was pretty damn special, and the best part is that I didn’t even have to plan it. I’d sort of figured that my first birthday away from home would be even lower key than before, but in fact it was one of my most enjoyable birthdays in recent memory. This just goes to show that The Power Of Friendship™ is the second greatest gift of all, behind Half Life 2, which my parents got me.
Truman Capps, despite the sentimentality of the above blog, is still a bit disappointed that he didn’t get the #1 item on his birthday wish list: Tina Fey.
So every morning I wake up at about 5:00 AM when my alarm goes off, only it isn’t my alarm, it’s the massive food trucks that are backing up to the University Catering loading dock that happens to be right outside my uber-expensive single dorm room. It so happens that these trucks’ highly obnoxious backing up sound (BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP) is the exact same sound as my Proton 320 Clock Radio (BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP). Now, I don’t want to bitch too much about this, but I’m going to because it’s highly necessary. Whoever drives these trucks really relishes backing up. I mean, it’s probably his favorite thing in the universe, because every morning I get to listen (BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP) as this wretched teamster practices his hobby for a good 20 minutes without a single break. How long could it possibly take to back up a truck!? I’m trying to sleep, for God’s sake.
That got a bit ranty, let me just hit the reset button here…
So every morning I wake up, crawl out of bed, slink over to my computer, and check my email, hoping that perhaps one of my blogs has garnered more comments or that my picture on hotornot.com got a rating above 3.3. Usually I get one or two emails, nothing particularly exciting, so you can imagine my excitement yesterday when I checked my email and found out that literally everyone in the world had posted on my wall to wish me happy birthday. That was surprisingly awesome, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for being glad I was born. Trust me, you’re not even half as happy about it as I am.
The biggest question I kept getting on my birthday was, “Do you have anything special planned?” and I guess that the people who were asking me this didn’t understand that I’ve planned something special a grand total of maybe two times in my life. I stopped having proper birthday parties when I was in middle school*, I think, and for the next few years my family would celebrate by taking me and a few friends to a movie and then having Mexican food or something, and by the time I got to high school my birthday had become so low key that I usually didn’t even tell most people about it (this is largely because the Sprague High School Band tradition was for everyone to sing very loudly and poorly to whoever had a birthday, usually cued by someone shouting, “HEY GUYS, GUESS WHO’S BIRTHDAY IT IS…!”). I managed to make it through my 18th birthday without being humiliated by public singing, which I saw as a victory, if not a slightly lonely one.
*I add these footnotes a lot, and I don’t intend it to be a gimmick, it just keeps happening. Anyway, when I was in 4th grade, I was having one of my last few birthday parties with maybe a dozen friends. Everybody got me nice 4th grade boy things, like cap guns and Lego sets and toy cars, except Steven. Steven was arguably richer than any of my other friends (gated community style rich, I mean), but there was no present from him on the table. Once I’d opened all the other presents, he shuffled over and handed me a folded $10 bill. At first I was thrilled, because, hey, $10!, but then as I unfolded it I found out it was some recruitment tract from a local church that was designed to look like a $10 bill when it was folded a certain way so people would pick it up. That was it. That was all he got me. Early on in high school, Steven got into drugs and dropped out. I hate you Steven, I hate you so much, that gift royally sucked, and I will never, ever, ever forgive you.
Thanks to the fact that nearly all my friends are on Facebook now, though, my birthday this year was a fairly public occurrence. Everywhere I went, people wished me a happy birthday, and despite my best efforts to prevent it the members of my Freshman Interest Group sang to me, but I took it like a man and I feel stronger for it. I ate stir-fry with friends and watched Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Quest of the Delta Knights – a classic!) and then returned to my dorm to find that the guys in the hall had taped every sign they could find onto my door:
It's like a bulletin board threw up!
Long story short, the entire birthday was pretty damn special, and the best part is that I didn’t even have to plan it. I’d sort of figured that my first birthday away from home would be even lower key than before, but in fact it was one of my most enjoyable birthdays in recent memory. This just goes to show that The Power Of Friendship™ is the second greatest gift of all, behind Half Life 2, which my parents got me.
Truman Capps, despite the sentimentality of the above blog, is still a bit disappointed that he didn’t get the #1 item on his birthday wish list: Tina Fey.