This most recent birthday message, in which I'm led to believe that Globe Life's entire staff has been lying awake at night worried to death about my poor bereaved survivors, informs me that a “Birthday Life” policy can pay for my entire funeral. Now, there's a picker-upper! It's almost as wonderful as discovering ear hair.
Birthdays should be indulgent and splendid. A day where you vow to not answer a single question beginning with “Honey, where's my...?” Sure, Lanny will go to work wearing his swim trunks for underwear, but that's not my problem. A birthday is a day to use bath products without the first name “Mister” or a cap shaped like Tigger.
A birthday is a day to have lunch with friends, except that at my age, the conversation always settles on the benefits of regular colonoscopies. I could snap Katie Couric's perky little neck for getting us all started on that. I haven't been able to watch the “Today” show ever since a tiny camera went into her celebrity colon on live TV while I was trying to eat my apple-cinnamon waffles. I can't have a ten-minute conversation with my women friends lately without somebody dragging their colon into it. It practically needs its own chair at the restaurant. Whatever happened to mindless gossip and trash talking over a plate of nachos?
Every time I mention my birthday, Lanny Joe goes into loosy-goosy gyrations and bursts into the Beatles song, “Happy Birthday.”
They say it's your birthday
It's my birthday too, yea
They say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy Birthday to you
And then I have to listen to Lanny tell his favorite birthday story for the bazillionth time: When he did his student teaching in the German town of Muenster, Texas, his students presented him with a birthday present. Before opening the box, he shook it slightly and noticed that it was wet in the corner. Touching his finger to the wet spot and tasting it, he asked, “Heineken?”
The students replied, “No.”
Again, he touched his finger to the box and tasted the liquid. “Dortmunder?”
The students replied again, “No.”
Finally, Lanny said, “I give up. What is it?”
“A puppy.”