Birthdays and Why I Hate Them

Usually, people view birthdays as a day of celebration that the person in question has lived another year. Small children especially get excited because their parents shower them with gifts and cake and balloons and decorations. Year after year, parents train their children to be materialistic and greedy when it comes to birthdays.

That brings me to the inspiration behind this post. Today, February 3, is my little brother's birthday. He's 11 today. I just don't see what the big deal is. He's 11, so what?

Every year, it's the same (and I'm sure a bunch of people can relate to these): the birthday child chooses his/her birthday dinner, the type of birthday cake, and writes a list of what they want. Then they wait in anticipation for their 'special' day. On the child's birthday, when he or she is opening their gifts, one parent is usually taking fifty thousand pictures while the other is filming every goddamn second. The scene goes along the lines of this:

The child picks up a gift, still fully wrapped.
Parent w/ camcorder: "Whaddya think it is?"
Child: "(insert gift)!"
Child opens the gift.
Parent: "What is it?"
"It's a (insert retarded gift here)!"
"Show it to the camera!" the parent says, expecting the child to model the gift like a miniature Vanna White. The child forces a smile, a laugh, or some ridiculous comment at which the parents laugh like it's the wittiest joke they've ever heard in their lives. This repeats as the child opens each overpriced, unneeded, useless gift the parents so graciously give him/her.

I also hate the picture-taking involved in these events. The child's parental units insist on taking a picture every two seconds to "capture the moment" so they can "relive memories in the future". In my family, when we're lighting candles and getting ready to "sing" (the quotations are there because I can hardly call it singing; it's more like yodeling or squawking), my parents do something that really pisses me off. They make me get in the picture with my dumbass little brother and expect me to be excited and smile as if it were my own birthday (which is stupid, because I never get excited for my birthday). Then they take solo pictures of me, even though I want no part in the moment and would rather be somewhere else, like downstairs watching TV.

When we finally get around to eating the damn cake, it's tastes pretty okay, as far as homemade cakes go. Whatever.

And so, that concludes the usual birthday. Whoop-de-fucking-doo. That's why, on May 17, I don't want people to make a big deal out of my birthday. I don't need any gifts, and I certainly don't need the attention. A simple "Happy Birthday" will suffice, and I won't ask for any more.

Thanks for reading!
Emi-licious