Readers! Readers!
Guess what!
If you guessed chicken butt
you were wrong, but thank you for saying what everyone was thinking.It's my nineteenth birthday! Yeah! Today! Well, today as in the day that you're reading this. I actually wrote this column three days ago, which is entirely disorienting to do. Trust me.
This new birthday status means, of course, that I can continue to do things that became legal for me last year, but I'm not yet able to buy alcohol. Conundrum?
This isn't a huge problem for me since I'm not a drinker, but seriously, there are only so many lottery tickets and Hustlers a guy can buy before he begins to question the value of such things. And for the record, people all over the campus who have even started coming to my room, I am, in fact, registered to vote, and it's none of your business who I will be voting for or whether it's absentee or not.
Sorry, I went on a rant-y tangent there. There are only so many of these volunteers that I can use sign language on. For some reason, I guess if you're deaf, they won't make you vote? That's nice of them.
Few people know that my birthday is the big deal that it is. I mean, sure, friends and family wish me a Happy Birthday occasionally a buon compleanno (that's Italian for Happy Birthday), but there's more to it than that. It is perhaps the most exciting day of your entire lives, and you never knew it until now.
You're welcome.
But now, let me take you on a short trip around the world, and I'll show you how the people who know what's up celebrate my birthday.
In Italy, it is known as il Giorno di Awesome, or, the Day of Awesome. Traditionally, it is celebrated by having the boys under the age of eighteen approach the girls on whom they have crushes and pull their hair. This alerts said girls that the boys are interested in them and it leads to the two of them playing Mortal Kombat until the next morning. If the female succeeds in putting a fatality on the male, they are destined to be together. If she does not succeed, she gets to give him an atomic wedgie for wasting her time. They also buy me presents.
In old folk's homes across the United States (of America), the elderly celebrate my birthday by everyone's telling the aides that they have a grandson having a birthday. This earns them a free cup of pudding and a free hour on the Wii. I am willing to be the fake grandson in order to get them an hour on the Wii, because according to my research, old people love Wii almost as much as little kids love Wii. And occasionally, they actually think I am their grandson, so they send me presents.
One other little known fact about my birthday is that the traditional Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos is actually a rip-off on the original celebration of my birthday. On the day I was born, they made a cast of my face out of sugar and my parents decorated it with like, cinnamon red-hots and stuff. It's ... haunting. And I think that was the only year I didn't get presents. Unless you count the gift of life as a present? I'm not sure where to score that.
I'd love to stick around and chat, Readers, but I have presents to open and potentially a cake waiting for me at the dining hall. I must off and consume it, for cake is delicious, and newspapers are not.
Nick Philpott is a sophomore studying playwriting and creative writing. He writes this quarter from East Green, and would like his parents and grandparents to know that he does not have any Hustlers. Send him birthday wishes at np714907@ohiou.edu.
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Nick Philpott
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Nick Philpott
