Break a Leg

I just celebrated my birthday last week. Celebrate may be too strong a word, one should say the birthday happened and I was awake for most of it.

There came a time over a decade or so ago that I just stopped caring about my birthday, it had lost its charm when I stopped collecting GI Joes and Transformers. Once I no longer obsessed over colorful little trinkets and doodads then the day itself, which has classically been structured around gift-receiving, ceased to have any real meaning for me.

Crap, I just remembered that my Mom's birthday is four days after mine, and I forgot to send her present. Stand by a sec.

There, I think that ought to do it.

There's some country, somewhere (I have a highly paid research staff) where on your birthday you actually give gifts to your friends and family, not the other way around. I think it might be Bakersfield, but the place isn't relevant. The point is, I want to inject some real purpose, some meaning back into not just my own birthdays, but my son's and wife's and family members' as well.

You could say giving gifts on your birthday instead of receiving is the way to go, problem solved. I say, don't let's be hasty now. That not only sounds expensive, but I have enough trouble trying to figure out what to get everyone once a year around Arbor Day. Maybe in Bakersfield where money flows like sweet nectar from the horse's teat they can buy the neighborhood a round of Eee PCs (thanks honey!) annually, but until Break A Leg hits the big time I need to come up with a Plan B.

Here are a few of the ideas I was tossing around:

• Strip poker party. Not too original, most of you probably jumped straight to the comments and offered this after the first paragraph. We'll call this a definite maybe.
  
• Origami. This way I can give a gift to everyone that's customized, personal, and cheap. I used to know a lot of the models, now I just remember the hat and one paper airplane. Since I finally know more than two people, we'll have to shelve this one for now.
  
• Just do the cake thing without the gifts. How does this even work? You blow out the candles then stand around just... eating cake? Maybe if it's a stripper cake or something, but Bachelor Party and Very Bad Things pretty much turned me off of those for good.
  
• Hooperman marathon. This is currently the front-runner.
  

So I still have a ways to go yet, but at least I have a little less than a year to come up with something.

Wait, one more:

• Learn an extreme sport. No, this just seems like begging to die. Every year. On the day you were born. Karma does not ignore such strong irony.