I was not born yesterday.

All the legal documents on which my name appears seem to indicate that today is my birthday. And if this thing you call "math" is to be believed, I'm 27.

(Someone needs to put out an APB on the past 26 years, because I have no clue where they went.)

I'm not a birthday person. I've had a retail job for the past 11 years, and thus the option to request the day off. But I never have. If I end up not working (like I'm not today), it's just a coincidence. I genuinely don't know how to react when people give me birthday cards or gifts, but that may be a product of consistently receiving the "combination gift" as a kid. Lazy fuckers just handed me 20 bucks in December and said "merry Christmas/happy birthday!" I couldn't care less now, but back then, it mattered.

Funny story, actually. Or series of stories. My friends have tried to throw me a party every year since high school. First they did it on my birthday, to which I got wise, and I didn't show up. Then they tried to trick me by having it either before or after. But I saw it coming...and didn't show up. So we've had a running joke for the past, oh, ten years, that if there's a party for me, I will not be there. I call it a "joke," but really... I'm so not into my birthday that I'm dead serious about not celebrating it.

When you think about it...shouldn't it be a bigger deal for my mother? It was the day she squeezed something the size of a watermelon out of an opening the size of a lemon, after all. Even though, more accurately, she was in labor for less than twelve hours, the doctors realized her pelvis wasn't wide enough for a vaginal birth, and they gave her a complication-free Caesarian. And I was closer to the size of a large cantaloupe rather than an average watermelon, really. But I had to get the Look Who's Talking reference in there somewhere.

Point is... I didn't have anything to do with my birth. That was more my parents' doing. And if you want to get technical, all my father did was aim and fire. I'd rather celebrate something I accomplished. There's no achievement in being born. What really matters is what you do after that.

(Not that I'm doing much.)

In addition, I don't believe we should have to pencil in appreciation for others. I liken my distaste for birthdays to my distaste for Valentine's Day. Why do we need to set aside a certain day to tell the person we love how much we love them? Why do we wait until that day to do something special to show them we care? We should be doing that every day. Likewise, if someone wants to throw a party in celebration of me, for whatever reason, or even just say something appreciative...shit, just do it. We don't need to wait for any specific date. I think people would be a lot happier if everyone took a few seconds out of the day to say the people they care about, "Hey, I appreciate you, and I think you're awesome." But no, we're all too busy and selfish for that, so we just do what Hallmark tells us.

(Sorry, didn't mean to inject the anti-consumerist rant there.)

Long story short... I don't mind if you wish me a happy birthday. I'll probably even say thank you. But it's not a big deal. I'm going to do the same thing I do every other day of the year, and I expect that others will, as well. Celebrate your own as you see fit, and if you throw a party, I'll be there. Even if I wouldn't step foot into my own.