BS: Rotten Birthdays

Subject: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Raptor
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 09:34 AM

Yesterday was bad, My wife forgot my Birthday and none of my friends or family called, But the worst was when I was living in Vancouver in 92. My girlfriend who went back to Ontario to visit her sisters called me to inform me that she was not comming back. So I went to the bank to get a bottle to find my account cleaned out. So me and the cat were wathcing T.V. when the fire alarm went off, My first thought was rotten kids when I looked out the door of my apt. I was hit in the face with a cloud of smoke so I put the cat in the guitar case and shouldered my guitar like a shotgun and walked down the steps (8th floor) When I got out I went to the apt. of a waitress that worked in the same restarant I did. I phoned my mom back in ont. to tell her that its my birthday and my apt. was on fire(no insurance), when I heard a puppy barking in the background and I asked her where was MY DOG?
She Said "i didn't want to tell you cause it was so close to your birthday but Your dog died!"

The Aftermath My Apt. only had miminumal Smoke damage

I made more money after 2 weeks

Me and the cat were better off without Carol

And my parents had Sandy the wonderfull sheltie (I still miss Max)

It all worked out eventualy But it was pretty shitty on that day!

ALL TRUE!!

Can anyone top that?

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 09:44 AM

birthday greetings for yesterday.

Nope, I can't better that - all I can offer is my 50th last year. My brother left a message on my machine & said Happy Birthday - we're still looking for a present & we'll send it when we find something appropriate.

While I was waiting for my Mudcat Secret Santa pressy (10 months later) I received a few other chrissy pressies & one parcel addressed by my sister-in-law containing a birthday card (written by her) & pressy (jewellery chosen by her). I tell everyine my sister-in-law gave me the beautiful pressy.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 10:05 AM

The radiologist happily sung happy birthday to me on my 50th this year as she x-rayed my wrist to later inform me it was broken!

Mind you that was early February and I had broken it new years day so I guess it wasn't too bad.

Glad it wasn't my right wrist. Would have caused havoc with my sex life...;-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 10:16 AM

my birthday usually gets celebrated over a period of several months - so it isn't so bad.

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 10:19 AM

My mother asked my sister what kind of cake she wanted for her (8th) birthday.. She said one from the bakery.

So mom bought her one, and put it on a chair during dinner.

My brother accidentally sat on it.

My sister was more than a little unhappy. Fortunately for my brother, the candles weren't lit.

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 10:22 AM

hey MMario - what's happened to your cookie? YOu've been a guest for a while - or do you post from another computer?

sandra

ps. I finished my scarf some weeks ago, & I finished my breanie on the weekedn, so I'll be wearing it this weekend at a festival. How's your knitting going?

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 10:33 AM

September 7, 2000, three weeks after my father died. I sat and cried because I wasn't going to get a card, or a phone call, or anything, from him ever again.

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Amergin
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 11:54 AM

well....we all know what happened on a certain day in September 2001.....

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 12:01 PM

The evil Queen Bess (content filter) ate my cookie!

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Micca
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 01:29 PM

I spent my 21st Birthday decorating the living room at home and was going to bed totally cream crackered at 5 to midnight when I realized what day it was. We (my family) tended not to make much fuss of birthdays, This year though has the makings of a Beauty, it falls 2 days after I go to court to deal with the financial side of my divorce!!!, So, However it goes it will be depressing!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: GUEST,Unbirthday Girl
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 02:44 PM

Sorry to hear you had such an uneventful birthday yesterday, Raptor. I hope your family are now feeling thoroughly ashamed and are making up for it today !

On the insistent invitation of a comparatively new-found 'friend', I travelled hundreds of miles across the country to celebrate a big milestone birthday at a festival, where I would not know anyone else.
It soon became clear that said 'friend' had decided he was going to ignore me and leave me to my own devices, not even introducing me to people he was talking to. I felt like something the cat had brought in ! As the day went on, I gave up trying to find him in the various festival places around the town and spent my big birthday evening in a pub session with some lovely people....but I didn't dare tell them it was my birthday and what had happened, because I knew I would have burst into tears. I did have a little cry in my tent though...

Not the birthday celebration I had hoped for, but it was a good festival and I made the most of it...and learned all I needed to know.

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Hollowfox
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 03:39 PM

Happy B'Day, Raptor. At least you're not dead yet, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 04:06 PM

I've had a lonely Birthday or two.

But not to match that one you had Raptor.

We had the Beltway sniper working the neighbourhood of our wedding last year and there was the year before last when those jerks knocked the buildings down the day after my birthday. All and all, I've been lucky.

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 06:34 PM

My 20th Birthday was spent on a bus. I was staying with my sister in Aldershot, a mere 70 odd miles from my usual abode.

The day started with my 6 month old neice barfing down my front as my sister dumped her on my chest to wake me up.

The only buses home I could catch were a 10.45am bus from Aldershot to Basingstoke, a 2.30pm link from Basingstoke, via Winchester to Bournemouth and then another bus from Bournemouth to Dorchester, my home town. This gave me a jolly 2 hour wait in Basingstoke, on a Friday, in an area where there were no cafes', no sandwich shops and almost every other shop was boarded up.

The 2.30pm bus left with me on it, only to be told, halfway home that there was an overturned tomato lorry on the Winchester bypass and we'd be delayed. By 4 hours. 4 hours sitting in a bus with no toilet, in thousands of tons of squashed tomatoes.

This of course, meant that we missed our Bournemouth connection, the last bus out at 6.00pm which should have got me home at 7.00pm. It was already 9.00pm when we got to Bournemouth. I rang a friend who came the 60 mile round trip to bring me home as fast as possible to where my housemate had arranged a surprise birthday party. As it was now 11.00pm the buggers had eaten and drunk almost everything, and I had been on a bus or in a waiting room for 12 hours. To cap it all, as I got to the party, I was greeted with the news that the bloke I'd fancied all year had been killed in a car smash.

It may not top anyone else's but it's been my worst so far.....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: JennyO
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 08:16 PM

On my 21st birthday, I had a rotten cold - one of those where you are really blocked up and can't taste anything. We went to a nice restaurant in town where everybody said how good the food was. As for me, I might as well have been eating cardboard.

Years later, when I was separated and my kids were young teenagers, I had no money, my mother wasn't speaking to me (a very common occurrence unfortunately, but that's another story) and I spent the day at home feeling sorry for myself. About a week later, my mother rang up and abused me, saying "Why didn't you ring me for your birthday?" This is true, believe it or not.

This year will be different however. John and I are planning a combined session and birthday party in a couple of weeks - just practising warming up the house for you, Charley and Brett. And who knows we might have a session in October too, when Giok comes! Must get the house nice and warm!

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: LadyJean
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 09:35 PM

Being a cynical, sarcastic harridan, I generally spend my birthdays alone. I ingest vast quantities of chocolate, and other unhealth foods, order things I do not need from catalogs, and anticipate a call from my sister. Several years back, she told me her rottweiller bit a lawyer. I fear I did rather enjoy that.
I would like, once again to thank Animal X for spending HER birthday in the emergency room with me, ten years ago, after I broke my arm. I can remember her phone number, because it spells a word. But I'd forgotten that it was her birthday.

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 10:09 PM

On my 35th Birthday I was practically force fed 35 shots of tequila. Once in awhile a friend would come outside to check on me to see if I was still alive.

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Ely
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 10:35 PM

I've never had a bad birthday. My brother, however, spent one of his on a family canoe trip in the boundary waters (between Minnesota and Canada). The night of his birthday, we had to move at the last minute to a different campsite an hour away, there was a horrible storm, we couldn't light the stoves so we ate stale hardtack and jam for dinner, we were all soaked and freezing cold, it got dark much too soon so we were all stumbling around in the wind, rain, and mud trying to put up tents. He finally started crying and said, "This is the worst tenth birthday I've ever had!".

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 12:05 AM

I wrote this little memoir about a birthday of my youth, and it was printed in the St. Paul Pioneer Press about a year ago.

* * *

I could call it the year I got nothing for my birthday, or I could call it the year I almost got a bicycle. I guess it's one of those half-empty, half-full things. You be the judge.

First, some background: My parents both grew up on farms in the South and were rather poor. They each moved to St. Louis during WW2, when jobs were plentiful - my father being too old to be drafted. That's where they met, married, and had me. They were always uneasy, though, about raising me in a place where people had to lock their doors. They never quite got used to the traffic and the proximity of strangers whom you couldn't trust, and who might, the minute your back was turned, make fun of your accent and your country ways. They thought of the city as a dangerous and hostile place.

It seemed to me they just never understood the importance of a bicycle to a city kid. They had grown up with horses and mules, not bicycles. And having lived through the Depression, they were rather tight with money. But they also must have known that having a bike would have made it easier for me to go off and play with kids whose families they didn't know well, who lived in neighborhoods where who-knows-what went on. So every time I asked for a bicycle, long after all my friends had them, they would take a deep breath and say: "Maybe next year."

One year, my birthday fell during the week of the family vacation. As usual, we spent it visiting aunts, uncles, and cousins on their farms. My parents confessed that, in their haste to prepare for the trip, they had forgotten to buy me a birthday present. So my Aunt Zella baked me a cake, and my parents promised they'd buy me something nice when we got back to the city.

My cousin Larry had both a pony and a bicycle. Now, you might think a city kid would be drawn to the pony, but in my case, it was the bicycle. I spent most of my birthday trying to learn to ride it. There was a little-used lane nearby -- actually the driveway to a country church -- that had a gentle slope to it. Though I never really learned to pedal, brake, or steer very well, I got so I could coast from the top to the bottom of that slope without losing my balance. I had to walk the bike back up. I was exhilarated. So at the end of the day, I asked my parents if they would buy me a bike when we got back to St. Louis. They said yes!

Maybe it was the relaxed, familiar atmosphere of the farm, and the loving embrace of family, that put them in such a generous mood. I suspect they soon regretted their rash promise.

We got back home on a Sunday, and of course shopping was never done on Sundays in those days. Monday, my dad had to go back to work, so shopping couldn't be done during the week, either. It would have been different if I had asked for some toy my mother could buy at the local shopping center, but a bicycle was a major purchase, so my dad had to be involved. Anyway, a bicycle, being a mechanical device, fell into his bailiwick. So nothing happened until the following Saturday. And then I found out that Dad had no intention of walking into Sears and plunking down $20, or whatever new bikes cost in those days. No, his plan was to study the want ads in the paper and find a used bike for sale.

It took some time to study the ads. Then a phone call had to be made. Then we had to get out the city map and find where the owner lived. Then we had to drive there, navigating through unfamiliar streets, into one of those neighborhoods where you-never-knew-what might be going on. And we had to talk to one of those people whose families you don't know, and who might even be one of those people you have to lock your door against! It was all very tedious and scary. But I wanted that bike!

I hadn't noticed, but my dad did, that the bike in question had a couple of rust spots. This made it unacceptable -- to him. We left without buying it. It had been a time-consuming project, and other errands had to be done, so we didn't look at any more bikes that day.

Following Saturday: similar process. This time the bike was OK, but my dad said the asking price was too high. The man wouldn't come down. So again we left without buying.

The third Saturday, I didn't nag Dad to take me out to look at another bike. I suppose he and my mom were relieved. They probably figured I had forgotten about it. But I didn't forget. I just didn't want to be tantalized and disappointed again. None of us ever mentioned the bike again, or any other present for that year.

That story has a sequel. Years later, as a college student in St. Paul, I still had never owned a bike or fully learned to ride one. I expected I never would. After all, what college student wants to be seen wobbling around on a bike? It would have been too humiliating. But then my girlfriend, who knew my story, bought me one for my 21st birthday! And then she accompanied me on my wobbly excursions down city alleys until I really learned to ride the darn thing. I was moved by her generosity, her patience, and by the fact that she didn't laugh at me. These were some of the things that convinced me I loved her. We married a year later.

But, alas, that story, too, has a sequel. We divorced a few years after that. Maybe the bicycle had helped blind me to certain other qualities she had that were not so admirable. For instance, I now think her generosity was at least partly motivated by guilt. It came at the end of a summer we had spent apart.

So now I wonder: If my parents had bought me a bicycle at the right time, could they have saved me from a bad marriage? Well, I'm a parent myself now, and I know the confusion of worrying about stuff like that. I can't quite bring myself to hold parents responsible for everything that goes wrong with their kids' lives. But chaos theory says that a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the planet can start a hurricane on the other, so it bears thinking about -- but not too much. It could drive you crazy.

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 02:49 AM

Of course, my birthday this year has the potential to be another travelogue, driving as I will be, the length and breadth of Essex, to keep one appointment and then trying to find Dave Bryant's Folk Barbeque on my own.

At least I'll have some music and the ability to stop the vehicle for a widdle this time.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 03:49 AM

My Birthday last year was a bit boring.....My bloke forgot it completely and so did most of my family but that might have been because my mother wasn't talking to me....however some of the Yorkshire catters remembered and I even had a visit from one of them!! Joe Offer had come to stay and he remembered!!!.....bought me a birthday pint a session we went to in Stratford!!!!

This year my birthday was a good one and made up for last years...but we didn't have Joe Offer here :-(

Hopefully we will see you again soon Joe!!

Khatt

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 08:50 AM

There was the time I was in the Army, in Korea, and was walking with two other guys across a bridge on our way to the mess hall for dinner. I stopped, remembering that I'd just turned 24. The day before I'd slipped on the ice and badly sprained my ankle; they thought I was in paid and tried to carry me, which put all three of us in a heap.

Cold, ice, sprained ankle, and even I had forgotten my birthday.

Good or bad, I'm glad to have had them, considering the alternative.

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 10:58 PM

Everytime I had a birthday party when I was a kid something bad would happen. When I was five, I got sick on too much birthday cake, at ten I got a bb gun and it fell, hitting my face and the site scratched my eye. We stopped parties for birthdays after that. On my 21st birthday I was a college student in London (first time a long way from my Chicago area home). This was 1975 and Nic Jones was the performer at the Enterprise Folk Club. I allowed myself to sit in the front row to watch, and had three whole pints of harp in celebration. That wasn't a rotten birthday at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: GUEST,.oO0 Mike 0Oo.
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 01:52 AM

First off, in '86, the infamous Space Shuttle Challenger exploded killing it's whole crew and a school teacher. I was 6.

in '03 I spent the firs hour of my birthday laying on my back on a concrete floor in a factory after having a disk slip, and the following 4 hours laying on my back on a gurney in a hospital....and the following three days on a thin (non existant) mattresspad on the floor of my living room....... fun birthday... BUT, I did get to ride in an ambulence for the first time. :-P

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: denise:^)
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 02:24 AM

September 11, 2001, was my 40th birthday. Pretty darn rotten!

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Grab
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 08:03 AM

My 18th birthday was the day before a Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award expedition, so most of the day was spent in driving to the Peak District. My folks gave us a bottle of Asti though, so we enjoyed ourselves sitting in a field drinking cheap fizz out of plastic beakers! :-) (The walk was atrocious though - it snowed two days running, and we got lost on Kinder Scout on the second day which wasn't fun.)

Mind you, as rotten birthdays go, April 1st is pretty damn bad.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Raptor
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 10:31 AM

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Kim C
Jack The Sailor
denise:^)

Any everyone else My missery loved your company!

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: Rotten Birthdays
From: Helen
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 05:38 PM

Jim Dixon,

What a great story!!

Well, here's mine. Last year my Mum died suddenly & unexpectedly a couple of weeks before Mother's Day, which is a couple of weeks before her & Dad's birthdays (Dad's is the day after hers) and that is a couple of weeks before my birthday. So by the time my birthday arrived I was feeling pretty shaken up.

Normally I would get a phone call in the morning from Mum, wishing me a happy birthday. This was the first time in my 47 years that my Mum hadn't wished me happy birthday.

I had to go to work and it was a long, busy day with lots of classes to teach and driving a half hour from one campus to the next and then half hour to the next.

To help understand the story, you need to know that on the day I had the phone call to say Mum had died, when I was driving the half hour trip to my parents' home, I had listened for the special song which I felt would come on the radio to help me to cope with her death. (This started when my Grandma died and the song was by The Pretenders called Hymn to Her. If you look at the lyrics and think of the maid, mother and crone concept it makes a lot of sense in relation to a grandmother's death. The chorus goes:   "And she will always carry on,   Something is lost, But something is found, They will keep on speaking her name, Some things change, Some stay the same"). Well, the song came on and it was Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven.

So, I was getting more and more upset as the day progressed, and in the last class I was having trouble keeping it all together. The class had to move to another room and so all the young blokes packed up their stuff and went out, except one young man who was a bit slower in packing up. Next thing, out of the blue, he launched into singing a beautiful snippet of Tears in Heaven. I couldn't believe it. He had never sung anything before or since in that class, and here he was singing "Mum's" song.

I managed to keep it together for the rest of the class - just - but when I got in the car to drive home the two young radio announcers were talking about the female announcer having her birthday today. The man said "I wonder if anyone has a terrible birthday where everything goes horribly wrong" and that's when I burst out crying.   

I wanted to phone them and say "Yes! And it's today!" but I was crying too much.

I keep wondering whether it was just sheer coincidence that the young man sang that song on that day at that moment, or whether he somehow felt compelled to sing it because an angel was whispering in his ear.

I prefer to believe the latter.

Helen