It’s My Party and I’ll Sleep Through it if I Want to
I am officially 28 years old, another birthday having aggressively gone by. And I feel like I am really noticing Canada’s aging population at the moment. The waitress that I told it was my birthday (while we were in the process of paying so it was too late for her to grab me a shot) said she was looking forward to going for high tea on her birthday. If that’s not an indication that the Canada Pension Plan is going to be long gone by the time I’m 65 I don’t know what is.
The thing is I really didn’t want to do anything for this birthday, nothing in the traditional bar scene anyway. I suspect I’ve seen one too many people vomit on their birthday—there is after all, nothing like reaching into a glass to fish out a napkin and realizing that someone has vomited into it first and used said napkin to cover the evidence. Evidence that is now all over your hand.
I have been in attendance for a thousand parties, been asked to call a hundred cabs (why is it that in the throes of drunkenness nobody seems to have a cellphone?), and had to instruct many an individual that I wasn’t joking, I really can’t serve them anymore booze now that they’ve less than deftly vomited into their own handbag.
Don’t get me wrong, I like pubs and meeting friends for a drink or two. But if it is the focus of the night I will inevitably get antsy and begin asking when we can head home to build a fort and watch terrible nineties movies. Everyone on your Instagram sees that we left the house, so why can’t we go to my place and watch Buffy? Next year I’m dispensing with the charade and throwing a pyjama party.
On my own birthday I prefer to hide under the covers, maybe watch a movie or hit up a museum and let the day pass like a bout of traveller’s revenge. My partner doesn’t understand this notion, and feels that I’m still at an age that I should want to make a big deal out of my birthday. I think this difference in our outlooks puts undeserved pressure on him because I can’t seem to haul my ass to a bar and celebrate properly with a few muff dives (I remember the days when I used to feed these to people: newsflash they are not all the same. If you got a Rocky Mountain Bear-Fucker shot in yours and there was strawberry syrup drizzled over it then the server did not care for you. I know because this is what I often did). Now I can only assume that karma dictates that I will find a Cement Mixer shot nestled in the middle of all of that whip cream and strawberry syrup.
When I was in college and I started working in the bar I thought it was a cool job, that I got to be social every weekend and that I was lucky. Now I realize that the experience, though fun for quite a few years, has basically turned me into a terrible curmudgeon. I like kitchen parties and book club meet-ups and long afternoons spent around a pool with a decent amount of margarita mix—but drag me into a dark bar and feed me shots for hours on end and I will assume that I have wronged you. Or that it’s your birthday and I somehow forgot.
Along the Seine. Paris, France 2015