Birthdays were the worst days, now we sip champagne when we thirst-ay… okay not quite, but I will make it rain with a bottle of Shloer though. Every birthday you have is a chance to reflect, one year older and one year wiser. I remember back in the good ol’ days when a Freddo chocolate bar was actually affordable, how times have changed! (Sidenote; you know you’ve been brought up in the U.K. when you measure inflation rate by the price of a Freddo chocolate bar!) Lord knows I’ve made so many mistakes and each year it seems like I go out of my way to outdo myself. Regardless, I plan to celebrate each birthday like it’s my last. Only time of the year where you can use the “c’mon man, it’s my birthday” line when negotiating an extra wing at the chicken and chips shop.
Event planning for birthdays will forever be a pain though. What really grinds my gears are the people who say they’re coming to your event then a day prior your phone gets hit with the craziest excuses as to why they can’t make it. You know someone’s lying when they add so much additional info to their response like it’s some 15-mark question, bonus marks for showing your working out. I know one guy who’s had to “help out his mum” for my last three birthdays; at least he’s consistent though I’m getting the impression he’s tryna dodge me. I hate organising things for my birthday though because I always have some sort of anxiety that something’s gonna go wrong which literally ruins my whole vibe. Spending so much time making sure everybody else is having a nice time that I forget about myself lol.
At least birthdays are more civil nowadays. Back in secondary school times, on your birthday you used to get birthdays beats. For those who don’t know, birthday beats is when you get hit a number of times on your birthday equivalent to your age but naturally when you reside in South London, everything’s taken a lil too far. Birthday beats was the quickest way to turn friendly banter into GBH. It was all fun and games until you got hit with that A/B/^/X/> combo that left a guy groggy. I saw people get remapped into next week cause of the beatings they took. That African Parent Beating. Being an August baby, my birthday fell outside the school year so I was waltzing around like that guy in the Money Supermarket ads, feeling epic! Unfortunately around year 10 people started catching onto this and tried rearranging my birthday just so I received my beats. “You’re born in September from now on”… No thanks. The thought of people whipping and nae nae’ing all over my torso doesn’t appeal to me, especially when every man and their dog were wearing those tough Kickers shoes. Those are the shoes that gave you 97 freekick accuracy in football. Ronaldo dinks to the shins.
It was all fun and games until you got hit with that A/B/^/X/> combo that left a guy groggy. I saw people get remapped into next week cause of the beatings they took. That African Parent Beating.
I’ve always said growing up is a trap; how can I be treated as an adult yet I’m still ‘typin’ lyk dis’. I’m at that stage where my age-mates are getting married and having kids yet I’m still a baby boy trying to enjoy my life. I don’t feel old yet the tax man treats me like a veteran and my unshaven beard means bouncers hardly ID me anymore. Developing one of those faces that salesmen don’t mind harassing and my business suits make the cinema attendants assume I don’t have the student card in my back pocket expiring 2017. Please sir, don’t make an a** out of ‘u’ and ‘me’. I’m not in a rush to give up my youth status but I do enjoy my birthday period and all the love I receive during. Mind you, you people that neglect me for the whole day then drop a ‘happy belated’ message the next day obviously don’t rate me enough.
Joe
