Happy Birthday To Me

         Me and birthdays have a kinda bad history.
       Not horrible. But less than ideal.
     This year my wife made me a beautiful cake. She put it in the microwave to keep the dogs from getting it. We had them in the house because it was around 10 degrees. Somebody. I won't mention any names but it was a boy child that's a teenager took the lovely cake out of the microwave to cook himself some lunch. He left the cake on the counter and are his lunch. Then he went to the living room to watch TV. Cake still sitting on the counter.
     When we heard the plate hit the floor, my wife said "Who left the cake on the counter?" It must have been a good cake, the dogs ate most of it before we could get in there.

     But it was better than my 20th birthday. It was on a Thursday. I worked 3rd shift then. Going in at 11,  getting off at 7. But the guy who worked 2nd shift said that he would swap shifts with me. I would work 2nd shift for him and my regular shift on Wednesday night then I could be off Thursday night to celebrate. Then Friday night we would each work our regular shifts. AWESOME! I'd get to work 40 hours, he'd get to work 40 hours. PLUS, I'd get paid a birthday bonus of 8 hours. And get to celebrate my birthday with some friends (or at least people I liked celebrating with)🍕 🎂 🍻
     So I go to work Wednesday at 3 and work 16 hours. I got off at 7, go run around for a little while and go home to sleep at 1. I set the alarm for 7:30 cause that would give me time to take a shower and make the party.
     My plans got interrupted when the phone rang at 2:55. The guy from 2nd called in sick. They need me to come in and work his shift. Ummmm, it's my birthday. I worked his shift last night. He's supposed to work his shift and mine tonight. He said he might make it in later, so maybe you'll stop be able to go celebrate.
Sorry, Charlie.
     I called a couple of the friends that I was supposed to meet up with and told them I might be late, but go ahead with the party. Nothing to worry about there, they were going to party regardless. He didn't make it in later. He didn't make it in to work 3rd shift. He didn't make it in Friday for his shift either. Guess who got to work another double? You've got 3 guesses and the first 2 don't count.
🎯
     If you're keeping score at home. It worked out to me having 2 8 hour shifts, 2 16 hour shifts, 1 15½ hour shift. 63½ hours worked. Plus 8 hours of bonus pay. Best check I got the whole time I worked there.
     The guy from second shift, he got fired. Turns out he had been stealing tickets and turning them in on his time sheet. It wouldn't have been discovered if he hadn't missed 3 days of work.

     I did get a fantastic gift this year:

     

I Don't Have Any Vegetarian Friends

Sorry, Angy.

A discussion on the twitter yesterday got under my skin a little bit. People were talking about having ______ friends. I let it kinda slide on by, cause I was trying to work at the moment. But I would like to comment now.

   I don't have any vegetarian friends. Nor do I have any gay friends. No black friends. No white friends. No Hispanic friends. No atheist friends, nor Christian friends either. If someone is my friend, I don't 'qualify' them. They are my friend . (read that as FRIEND PERIOD).

  Friends are the people you can not see for weeks, or months, sometimes even years and start up a conversation. They may ask you about your family, or not mention them at all. Friends are something that you collect as you go through life. You may meet 20 people when you start a new job, and wind up with 3 of them as what you would truly consider a friend. Or you may be lucky and all 20 of them become someone you consider as your friend. 

  Now to clear things up though, I have friends (or used to) that are homosexual, black, white, hispanic, asian, jewish, catholic, christian, wiccan, atheist, vegetarian, vegan, native american, next door neighbors, miles away on the internet.

   But I don't classify them. They are or were just friends.

Some people I almost expect them to parade me around showing me their various collection of friends.

BTW Left-handed, Lesbian Lebanese friends are VERY RARE.

Thank You for reading and Good Day!

Nelson

This was one of the first posts I wrote in a blog that doesn't exist anymore. But I kept a copy of it.