How To Have a Miserable Birthday

I know how to do some stuff. For real. For example, I can make the perfect nap space. You’ll need two fans, three standard size pillows, one of those long snuggle pillows that you can tuck between your legs, some sheets with a bit of thread count, and a memory foam gel mattress.  Turn off the lights, lock the kids out, and take a nap. It’ll be fantastic, promise. Especially if you can drown out the screams of “Mommy!” coming from the hallway.

Also, I can make the perfect cup of apple juice. Start with a no-sweat cup. Sweaty cups suck. Add crushed ice and Mott’s apple juice. If you forget the crushed ice, you’ve screwed this up, buddy.

And the third thing I can do is plan a perfectly miserable birthday. For myself. Please allow me to share my talents, in case you’re interested in a ruining your next birthday.

Three days before your birthday: Call in your happy pill refills, but forget to pick them up. You know, the ones that keep you content and alive.

Two days before your birthday: Think, “I’ll be okay without those pills until tomorrow. Also, this bed and apple juice are heavenly.”

One day before your birthday: 

• Pick a fight with your husband. When he asks if you’ve taken your happy pills lately, say yes. Then make an excuse to sneak off to town and pick up happy pills. Arrive at the pharmacy nine minutes after closing and cry. Drive back to the house and eat a cookie.
• Take your son and his girlfriend out for his first date. Your baby is dating. Sure, it’s highly chaperoned, but you’re old enough that your kid wants to spend time with a girl that isn’t you. Sneak off at dinner and cry in the bathroom for a few minutes.
• Go to a movie with your husband. Ask him if he wants to make out. Accidentally hit him in the nads when he says, “Thanks for asking, but I’d rather keep playing Panda Pop on my phone.”

On your birthday: 

• Turn thirty-eight. Congrats, you old hag, you’re officially in your late thirties! Your mom will start to call you “my forty-year-old daughter.”
• Let your son, who recently turned fourteen, invite thirty teenagers to your house to celebrate HIS recent birthday. Now you have to clean the house, clean the deck, and finish building the fire pit. Cleaning is fun any day, but especially fun on your birthday.
• Go to the deck to wipe down the tables, stub your toe on the step, fall to your knees sobbing. Whimper, “No one even cares that I’m dying!” Go to your bedroom. Cry some more. Wipe your tears on your shirt. Your still in your pajamas, so, whatever.
• Consider taking a nap. I mean, it’s warranted, considering it’s your birthday, nobody loves you, and your thyroid pills are hanging out in the pharmacy with your happy pills.
• Field two “happy birthday” phone calls.  The first is automated and from your pharmacist. The second is automated and from your gynecologist.
• Host a group of teenagers at your home and watch them throw cans in your yard. Feign an illness, and spend a large amount of time in the bathroom — alternately crying and sobbing, of course.

The day after your birthday: 

• Position yourself strategically in the pharmacy parking lot so that you’ll be the first customer of the day.
• Take four happy pills. Chase it with a bottle of Mott’s.