My Twenty-Ninth Birthday Party Redux

There’s an art to turning nine and over the years I’ve slowly worked toward mastery of that art. I’ve almost got it right. Maybe in another 29 years I’ll nail it down … but the nailing of it has been … a blast.

This year it started at Isaac’s Way where my lovely sophisticated almost in college and biting at the bit to get her own apartment and a bottle of wine daughter bought dinner for me. When I told the waitress I’d just turned 29, it seemed to have a strange effect on her …

Cass showed me how to read a menu upside down.

Then we went to Wilsers Deck, scene of literary destruction and spontaneous acts of otherness on increasing occasions. Given it was my birthday (did I mention 29th?), Cass stuck around for a dad/daughter pic and then left me to the mercy of my friends.

These are my only friends in the world … and they’re all out to kill me. I have this effect on people.

Whitefeather said, “Maybe we could set him on fire.” Chris said, “Yeah, that would keep the bugs away.”

John said, “We’ll set him on fire with cigars!” and immediately lit two.

Marie and Lorie said, “Hey, Biff! Don’t we look great tonight. Why don’t you come over here to see if we’re real and trip on the table and fall into pointy objects or something.”

Andrew tried to set me on fire by blowing cigar smoke out his ear at close range.

Erik and Rachel placed an explosive device under my chair, but the triggering device was low on batteries.

So Rachel through the triggering device, removed her sandal and threw it at my head.

Marie and Andrew tried to frighten me to death with scary faces.

Then Whitefeather and Lorie joined Andrew in trying to scare me to death.

Lorie tried to scare me to death with Chris’s hat.

Lorie was having so much fun trying to scare me to death that she even joined forces with me in trying to scare everybody else to death.

Matte showed up, put me on his lap and did a ventriloquist act with me as the dummy.

Several people at tables around ours died from fright. In regard for the public safety, everybody stopped trying to kill me, but Andrew said, “Next year, we’re bringing … stuff … yeah … stuff.”

Later that night, he and John tried to kill me when we drove down the Forbidden Path of UNB only to find that it ended in a gorge that would have taken the bottom out of John's vehicle. While we were backing up at a hundred miles an hour screaming, "We're all gonna die!" I couldn't help but think, "Yes, but we're all gonna die beautifully."