Stu's take on... birthdays

Another birthday come and gone. 31 years old.

Yup, I know – ANCIENT! Not only over the hill, but halfway up the next one too.

It really doesn’t feel that long ago since folks in their thirties seemed to my teenage mind to be but a mere bingo-call away from the old-age home, senior daipers and harping on about “when I was your age” and “wanna know what’s wrong with the youth of today?”

Well guess what – I’ve already spent a good couple of years whining about “when I was your age” to the closest emo-brat who is clearly in desperate need of a haircut, some makeup remover, confiscation of his sulky poetry, and last but not least, a swift kick in the pants.

Same goes for announcing my theories to any who’ll listen on “what’s wrong with the youth of today”. Yet again, the answer generally involves all of the above. Cheer up already! Seriously.

So the thirties are the new twenties. I’m not really sure if that’s an official saying, so I have just proclaimed it, and it is from here on out officially true. I have spoken.

While we’re on the subject, another thing I’ve noticed is that men are terrible when it’s their birthday. Just ask my fiancée. She was honoured yesterday to be on the receiving end of my birthday awesomeness. From the split second I opened my eyes, until 0.0000001 seconds to midnight, I made sure there was not a single person alive who was not acutely aware of the fact that 28 December is MY day. Not yours, not his, not hers… MINE!

From my admittedly horrendous, although personally I find it quite pleasant, caterwauling of “Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, fa la la la la” all day long, to my stubborn refusal to do absolutely anything around the house (including, but not limited to, making coffee, feeding the dogs, going to the shops) all the way to being quite adamant that on 28 December our satellite decoder is conveniently pre-programmed to only receive programmes featuring violent sports, scantily-clad ladies and big things getting blown the f@ck up! Hey – don’t blame me. Take it up with DSTV.

Of course Her Royal Fiancéeness called my bluff on this one, but bless her heart, for the first time in history I was NOT forced to have to endure the sheer horror that is pretty much any soap opera.

When a woman has her birthday, us guys will begrudgingly stagger from the bed all bleary-eyed at some ridiculous hour because apparently the “princess” demands coffee and a plate of burnt toast lightly seasoned with a dash of recently-expired Marmite. This is immediately followed by the presentation of a badly-wrapped gift that, while we like to proclaim to all and sundry is the product of our exceptional in-depth knowledge of her hearts wants and desires, is in fact whatever she unsubtly demanded a few days prior.

The rest of the day is then spent sneaking stealthily around the house, terrified that she may demand feeding, or that you rub her feet, or whip up a tasty meal. The evening is rounded off at a hideously-expensive restaurant where we men spend the entire time debating the merits of headbutting the pretentious waiter with all his effeminate knowledge of overpriced wines, interspersed with occasional tremors of concern at just what this not-so-impressive-after-all-and-definitely-not-worth-that-much food is going to cost.

People always ask me if it’s not rather crap having a birthday so close to Christmas, to which I always say: “double presents at Christmas, dude! Awesome!”. Additionally, remember this: 10 years ago I celebrated Christmas. Three days later I turned 21. Three days after that: the year 2000 rolled around. Do you have ANY idea how insanely awesome that week was? I don’t – can’t remember too much of it (thanks a lot Mr Jack Daniels), but I’m pretty sure it was spectacular.

Besides, I’m just as terrible when Christmas rolls around, so I think it’s safe to assume that my exceedingly brave fiancée deserves a whole year of peace and quiet before the chaos starts all over again.

—