call HART crazy .. but
I have two brothers, no sisters. My older brother is 6 years older than me, and was born on Mother’s Day. My younger brother is eleven months younger than me, and for 25 days every year .. we are the same age. The joke gets thin.
Usually, we celebrate my older brother’s dinner at the same time as Mother’s Day, as a Sunday Dinner Gathering. This year, it would seem, there are plans to stretch it into two sunday dinners .. tonight (for my brother) and next sunday (for Mother’s Day).
What to get for my brother .. what to get ..
My birthday is the last of the three of us. I actually remember one year when my mother forgot my birthday, but that itself was the best birthday gift I could ever have! I am the one who will not want to go to the family BBQ birthday dinner, if it falls on my birthday, because I want to celebrate my birthday by myself, or with my wife. And, I don’t really mean celebrate, because it’s just another day for me. I’ve given up celebrating my birthday when Y2K happened. Every year, I have been counting backwards and getting younger every year too!
You see .. I was 36 on December 31, 1999 and now I am 30 years old. You should try it some times.
Years and Years and Years ago, when I was counting years forward .. myself and my brothers had a simple “Birthday Gift Giving” plan. I would buy him a carton of their favorite brand of cigarettes and they would buy me my favorite brand of cigarettes. Well, two things happened to this plan:
1) They couldn’t afford to buy me gifts. That meant, that after my parents birthdays (Jan/Mar) after Mother’s day and Father’s day (May/Jun) and My brothers birthday (Jun/Jul) and my wife’s birthday (Mar) .. when my birthday came in July – I must have spent gazillions on gifts for my immediate family – and then I would get burned – no gifts.
2) I quit smoking October 31, 2001 – so, I don’t need cigarettes anymore anyway.
Well .. this year .. I decided I would do something nice for my brother and get him a useful gift. I believed that his DSL internet connection was disconnected .. (you probably shouldn’t order stuff like that if you never want to pay the DSL company) .. and I was going to pay the arrears and reconnect it for a month or two – depending on how much he owed.
The only thing is – I am unable to find out how much arrears it is to pay off the bill – because of the Privacy Act. Those boneheads at the phone company won’t tell me anything. They will accept my payment though. But – what if he owes them $1,000 or something? That’s like throwing money away I can’t afford.
So – tonight I go to his birthday dinner, bearing no gifts .. and find out how secretly how much he really owes. His birthday is on Tuesday anyway. And, if he owes too much? Well – then he’s getting the annual and customary Tupperware purchased from Safeway filled with Bulk Food peanuts, dried fruits and other snacks .. just like he gave me last year.
Next year I can do something nice’r’ for him .. when he hits the big -FIVE-OH-
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