My birthday: It sucked.
May 31, 2005, 5:02 PM
May 30, my 24th birthday, was awful. I wanted no attention, and had decided not to request the day off so I could forget about my birthday by just doing the work thing.
That didn’t quite work out. Everyone and their mother knew it was my birthday yesterday, and no one would leave me alone. Everyone meant well, don’t get me wrong, but I wanted nothing more than to not hear about it. Still, there were no less than FOUR announcements made on the squawk box – one after I specifically told the person to their face not to make the announcement. Then there was a small group of coworkers that came up behind me and started clapping and singing “Happy Birthday”. I ran the other direction.
It was enough to just want to curl up and die. And so many people didn’t understand why I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday this year. I even mentioned how I vetoed a cake and a card this year. No cake. No card. That’s how you know I’m serious, when I specifically said I didn’t want a cake or even a birthday card.
Couple the relentless (but well-intentioned) unwanted attention with the fact that I hadn’t quite had enough sleep the night before, and I was completely miserable on my birthday. I even got a form letter from the CEO of Wal-Mart’s stores division wishing me a happy birthday. With a misspelling in it, no less. They obviously went to the Dan Quayle school of spelling, as I was wished a “greate” year instead of a “great” year. How professional.
I personally will have a much better year once I find a REAL job and get out of the hell which is Wally World in Waynesboro working as a cashier for seven bucks an hour, with a group of managers who would turn around and stab you in the back and leave you for dead if the customer asked them to. For someone with a college degree, working at Wal-Mart as a cashier is pathetic.
I was so mad by the time I got off work that on my way out, I told Sis that I was going out for a while in order to cool off, that I didn’t know when I was coming back home, and that I was not going to answer my cell phone.
When you go driving in order to cool off, sometimes it seems that the distance traveled is directly proportional to how upset you are. I must have been pretty upset, because I drove a long way. I drove roughly 80 miles each way yesterday evening – to Culpeper and back, via Charlottesville. I think that 160 miles indicates that I was indeed ROYALLY steamed. According to my cell phone, I missed four or five phone calls.
But that seemed to do the trick, and I was in a good mood again when I got back.
Then this morning, I found out that despite my request of NO CAKE, the parents still bought me a cake for my birthday – a cheesecake, and that the calls I missed were to find out when I was coming home in order to enjoy it with me. What part of “no cake” did they not understand? I wanted no birthday cake. I am still dead set against celebrating this birthday, and want nothing more than to forget about it and be left alone. Why can’t anyone just honor that request, that to make me happy requires no action on anyone’s part? Why can’t they just do that, and make me happy?
And that cheesecake is going to go. I told the parents more than once that I did not want a cake. And since I completely wanted to forget my birthday this year, Mom now thinks I have “issues” and wants to get to the bottom of it. I just want to be left alone this year and to be allowed to “miss” a birthday.
All I wanted was for the whole birthday thing to just go away. And that the fact that no one was willing to let me have my birthday wish just makes me even more upset.
In the end, I think I’ll be fine. Thank you for listening as I went on a bit of a rant just now. Venting makes me feel a little better about all this.
Song: Don't have one.
Quote: Again, thank you for listening.