Flames

How do you feel about your birthday?  Do you want attention, parties, gifts?  Or, would you rather celebrate quietly or not at all?  Has the new worn off your birthday suit?

I would prefer not to celebrate mine with strangers but like to get attention from family and close friends.  Thanks to facebook, I don’t get calls or cards anymore.  I might get a ‘hpy bd’ on my page if I am lucky.  My husband still makes the day special for me and I appreciate it more than he will ever know.

A co-worker had a birthday today and had told us back in October that he didn’t want any attention or notice given when the day rolled around.  I told him I felt the same way about mine and we let it go at that.  This morning I found out they had ordered a birthday cake for him and I reminded the boss that co-worker didn’t want a fuss.  Boss said that we couldn’t let the day go by without celebrating with him.

I was worried.  The co-worker was specific and I really thought he would be angry to have a cake and candles.

Not to worry.  A while later I was talking with co-worker and he told me it was his birthday and he didn’t mind some attention.  Great.  He was going to get it.

After lunch time the cake arrived.  Co-worker was still out of the office so we put the multitude of candles in the cake and prepared to surprise him.  I was suddenly worried.  There were quite a few candles and we had pretty sensitive smoke detectors and an active sprinkler system.  I started to think we were going to get an unpleasant shower out of the deal and end up with soggy cake.

Co worker returned and I distracted him while boss lit the candles.  I then tried to get co-worker to come in to the conference room to get surprised.  He was slow to action.  I almost had to drag him into the conference meanwhile smelling candle wax and almost feeling the heat from the candles.

He finally went in to the conference room, opened his birthday card, had pictures taken and almost didn’t want to blow out the candles.  The entire cake top was covered with melted wax by this time and it was dripping onto the glass top table.  More than that, the flames had combined to about an 8 inch torch and they were right under the smoke detector/sprinkler.  I was panicking.

Finally he did blow out the candles and I ran to open the door to get fresh air in and get rid of the smoke.  We all had a great laugh and enjoyed the cake.

For a person not wanting any celebration, he almost had the entire fire department there.  Next year we should just follow his wishes or maybe get some of those fake flicker candles.  Another candle on the cake might be our un doing.