Birthdays Are Overrated!

The anniversary of my birth came and went over the weekend, and chances are extremely likely you neither knew nor cared. And that's fine with me.

Aside from an apparent desire by society to give everyone a personal "special" day, as well as the government's desire to keep demographic records for the census, social security and whatnot, is there any real purpose behind birthdays anyway? I mean, literally... who cares? People may wish you a happy birthday, but aside from the social niceties of it, do they really care that it's your birthday? I would argue they do not.

The only adult people who actually care about their birthdays are the people who are observing their own birthdays... and many of them (like me) don't care even then.

Now, that's not to say I didn't observe my birthday... I did. Kinda. Robin and I went out for a lovely dinner with our friends, Randy and Lori... but we would have done that whether it was my birthday or not. Robin and the boys gave me a DVD set of the HBO series about John Adams... but I had actually already bought the set at Costco, and upon remembering that my birthday was coming, I directed Robin to save it and give it to me now. I also did not get any birthday cards from the family, opting to save us about 9 bucks on cards which would have been in the trash by the end of the evening. Robin DID make me a birthday cake... mostly, I think, because she thought I was getting gypped birthday presents... Presents, mind you, that I didn't want and that I would have paid for anyway! The cake was delicious, by the way...

Now, I know some people don't do birthdays because they don't like facing getting older. I don't have a problem with that - perhaps because I'm younger than many, if not most, of my friends... (Happy birthday Joan and Bill!) I don't mind telling you how old I am... but don't expect me to blurt it out here lest any prospective employers are reading!

The long and short of it is that, from my perspective, the world would be a happier place if we just did away with birthdays as an excuse for celebration... Imagine how many fewer feelings would be hurt if people's birthdays were merely unknown rather than thoughtlessly forgotten? How much money would you save on NOT having to buy gifts for every bratty kid that your bratty kid was friends with for their birthdays? How many empty calories in your office would be avoided by not having a cake du jour to be eaten up?

Think about it, America... If oil prices remain steady, I may have just found a new way for Americans to save big money!