A birthday comparison

Last Friday I celebrated my 31st birthday. I love going out with my friends, so a birthday is just another reason to celebrate. Since it was my birthday, I was able to choose the theme. For my 29th, it was Rambo Golf (the legendary Greenwich Village bar crawl). For my 30th, it was White Trash Bash (where the entire party was thrown out of a dive bar). This year…funny and/or inappropriate t-shirts. Yeah, everyone has at one time bought a t-shirt they thought was hilarious…then after putting it on realized it was too unsuitable to wear in public.
On Saturday night, I went to another birthday party. This one was for a girl on my kickball team (Katy) that was turning 26. Yeah, the whole team is several years younger. While there, it dawned on me the contrast between my birthday and hers. I’ve never before quite noticed the stark difference a half decade could make. Here is the comparison.
31 year old birthday: people attending knew the host or were married/dating someone who knew the host.

26 year old birthday: people show up at random…drawn in by cheap beer specials and drinking games.
Katy and I both reserved the back part of the bar for our respective parties. Mine involved a couple of tables where my guests could drop their coats and bags off without having to worry about encroaching douche bags. Katy had a whole back room of a college aged bar that held two flip cup tables and beer pong. You had to pay $25 just to get into that section and you were rewarded with unlimited free beer for 3 hours. About an hour into her party, I noticed Katy had several groups of guys loitering around. Turns out they were just random guys who heard about the drink special at the door and decided to crash.

31 year old birthday: people dressed in funny t-shirts and jeans. Comfort and humor are the key points. Who cares if you look ridiculous?


26 year old birthday: TITS! I mean showing so much heaving cleavage like it is an endangered species.


31 year old birthday: drinking shots of Patron and drinking micro brews. Granted I did have $2 PBR cans because they remind me of college (LOVED Pabst with pineapple juice…it was the precursor to Mike’s hard lemonade). Granted if I wanted to be nostalgic, I should have been drinking Zima’s with a jolly rancher (you know…to flavor it).

26 year old birthday: drinking a mutual swill of skunk beer and bacteria. People were drinking to get drunk, end of story. The flip cup games involved all sorts of beer sharing and collection on the dirty table.

31 year old birthday: telling stories and catching up with friends. If a guy liked you, maybe he would chat with you or maybe buy you a drink.
26 year old birthday: if a guy liked you, he would offer to make out with another guy in order to make out with you. NOT KIDDING! Don’t worry, I didn’t take him up on that offer.

31 year old birthday: ample play on the jukebox, no dancing…except for the token drunk guy.
26 year old birthday: DANCE OFF! Yeah some short wannabe was desperate to get with any girl. I watched him grab every girl and try to grind all over them. When he came around to me, I decided he needed to be schooled. I pulled out every dance team captain move I had on him. Soon a circle formed around us and it was truly a battle. Granted all he tried to do was grab a hold of me and thrust, but I kept side stepping and slipping just beyond his grasp. The beat of the music and the cheer of the crowd kept my adrenaline up, so I decided to really pull out all the stops. He turned around and stuck his butt into me (why I have no idea). I then pretended to pull his hair and donkey punch him the head. One of his guy friends yelled out “dog you OWNED!’

My birthday party was (in my mind) a success and I had an absolute blast. The fact that my friends all participated in the funny t-shirts totally made my day. There were some really good shirts but my favorite of the night was Rick’s (who shared the birthday party with me). I have the sense of humor of a kindergartener, so any poop joke makes me laugh. His shirt had a corncob saying “see you in your poop!” In fact, I just finished reading Tucker Max’s book and the two poop related stories made me laugh out loud…on the train. Granted when I try to retell these stories, I can’t seem to capture the right way to present humor in poop. Read for yourself the hotel lobby exploding diarrhea story or the secret videotaping poop experiment.