Birthday Roll

Yesterday, we celebrated a friend's birthday and the Leeroy Theory held up again. I mention this friend's birthday because he, like me, does not celebrate his birthday much. But last year, he invited a few people to dinner on his birthday without the majority knowing it was his birthday. Again this year, I almost went to dinner on his birthday without knowing it was for his birthday but thankfully my roommate Scott mentioned it. Now for two years running, his birthday has become nights that we will probably remember for a long period.

While you may not celebrate your own birthday, many others will help you commemorate it. If you shop and actually spend the time to give companies your address/email, you may end up with a gift card or some other special offer. But is it worth receiving all that spam year-round? Then, you have the traditional restaurant birthday dinners; most places give the birthday person a piece of cake or some other dessert. If not at least a piece of dessert, the person is at a minimun embarrassed with a extremely out of tune Happy Birthday song performed by workers and sometimes joined by other customers. But other restaurants go beyond the call of duty. I've seen a BBQ restaurant give a free entree out, a Mexican restaurant give a shot of (cheap) Tequila away, and yesterday, my friend received a free sushi roll! (And it wasn't a cheap roll either. Got to love sushi!) It's admirable seeing strangers going out of their way to help celebrate birthdays.

But of course, your family and friends will make your birthday special more than other. They will remind you that you're getting old fast; you just have to remember they are too. Birthdays are a great time to reminisce about years of the past especially if the memories come on the same day of previous years. Hopefully, your birthday comes around and you'll enjoy every single second of it; you'll love that day so much that you won't want to finish but eventually, it has to.