The Anniversary of My Previous Birthday

Right. So I'm a year older.

Everyone gets to be a year older one year after their previous birthday. You do, I do - heck, even Ryan Seacrest does. Get to be a year older on the anniversary of their previous birthday, I mean.

Given that the population of the world is - whatever it is - you'd think that it's a commonplace thing, people getting older, because every day is the anniversary of some other day, and on that other day, someone was born. So yeah, not such a big deal, it being the anniversary of the previous anniversary of the day you were born.

But oh, man, try telling my friends that.

The way they go on about it, it's like I'm the only one who ever had a birthday in the entire universe. They want a party, they want cake, they want pizza, they even want drinks. And guess who has to pay for all that stuff? The one who got a year older, that's who. I mean, is that fair? They stuff their faces and their gills, and my bank account gets lighter.

But this anniversary of the previous anniversary of the day I was born, I was ready for them.

I decided I was NOT going to spend lots of money and buy stuff for their faces. I was going to cook it all up myself. I'm not the world's greatest cook, but then I'm a worse spender-of-money than I am a cook, so they're better off with cook-me than spender-me.

Or so I figured.

Anyway, so I 'searched' simple pizza recipes and got about 114,000,000 results. I clicked on the first one, figuring it had to be the simplest, and started. Hmmmmm. Mozzarella is easy, I can get that. I have never heard of Feta cheese and don't want to find out about it now. I'm sure I don't really need it anyway. Mushrooms, fine. Onions, fine. What is basil? Is it expensive?

So yeah, that's the kind of creative process I went through, for the sake of my friends. I followed the recipe all the way to Step #8 - which said - "put the pizzas one at a time into the oven and ..."

One at a time.

Goodness, that would take too long. They'd be here long before any pizzas worth mentioning got done. And I had to shower and change. I didn't have time to babysit pizzas as they got done one by one. Surely it wouldn't harm to just bung them in together, one on top of the other - the corn flour or whatever is supposed to keep them apart, isn't it?

* * * * * * * * *

"Hi there Sophy! Come along in, Robert! Nice to see you, Dawn! Looking good, Jace! Yo, Jyo!"

I was all dressed up by the time my friends arrived. Putting on my best 'I'm your happy host' manner, I welcomed them. I offered them some grape juice and we sat around, sipping.

"What's the matter, Sophy? Got a cold?"

"No, no - it's just - can you smell something?"

"Smell? I can't - "

"It's coming from in ..." Sophy was already in the kitchen as she spoke.

A moment's pause - and then - "What the HECK IS this?"

We went out for dinner.

They paid.


"Journey Through Genre Winners - September 2011" 
Second Place - "The Anniversary of My Previous Birthday"

Full Counts:
All Words: 536.