“You Say It’s Your Birthday, It’s My Birthday Too”

   Shortly after Chrissy moved out I got a call from my parents. I received a delinquent parking ticket in the mail sent to NY because my license plates were still my NY plates. I had my parents mail this ticket to me. It turned out Chrissy had gotten the ticket one of those times when she borrowed my Jeep. I called her to inquire about it, and she told me she had thought she paid it. She had gotten it when a doctor appointment had run late, she told me.

  We went out to lunch together so I could give her the ticket to pay. She also wanted to pay me back some money she owed me. Annoyed and knowing she was a vegetarian, I made us go to a burger joint. While there she told me that she was indeed pregnant and tried to play it off that I had ‘jinxed’ them by suggesting it. She also gave me a $50 bill with a promise there was more to come. Zak and she had no money before a child. I knew better. To date I have never seen another penny. I asked her if having a child changes plans to move to California. She informed me it delayed plans but they were still moving. It’s nice to know that money will never play a factor in any of her life decisions.

  Lori was a big football fan, especially for the Denver Broncos. I, however, was not a big football fan. My friends back in New York started a Fantasy Football League and asked me to join. I joined for the trash talking, but I would have Lori help me with the Football stuff. That first year my team didn’t fair to well.   Anyway, a few weeks after Lori moved in was her birthday. For her birthday she wanted a bunch of her friends to join her at a bar/restaurant to watch a pre-season Broncos game. All was well. Her friends were on the nerdy side, but not always in a good way. They were a bit condescending to people who didn’t know what they knew or didn’t agree with them, especially one guy named Scott. As a spectator who sat back, I noticed that they weren’t particularly nice to Lori, but I didn’t say anything. Luckily while at the restaurant, Chrissy was there with Zak, so I could talk to her.

  After the game, Lori invited them all back to our place. Zak and Chrissy declined, but the others did. They all sat and talked and reminisced, which was fine. They were all having conversations about things I didn’t care about so I just played host while they played their word games and such. Lori tried to get me to interact with them, but I was already put off, so it was hard to make the effort. Finally, they decided to ask ‘Star Wars’ trivia questions. One person would ask a question and whoever answers it correct asked the next question.

  Lori told me “Kerry! You know Star Wars, you should play!” Reluctantly, I agreed. Then they started asking questions like “At how many meters distance do the lasers from the S-Foils of an X-Wing Fighter meet?” I’m sorry. I must have been getting popcorn during the scene in the movie in which Luke consults a Rebel technician in the hangar bay just before blowing up the Death Star, because I missed this one. After putting up with this crap for what seemed like forever already, Lori went to bed, leaving me to continue to host these guys. All attempts to hint that they overstayed their welcome failed.

  They continued on with a game where you go around the room and answer a question “If you can own any piece of fictional equipment from science fiction, movies or comic books etc., what would it be and why?” They were all answering things like, the gun from some crappy Japanese B-movie or comic I never heard of or an X-Men something or other. They get to me and I just said a Flux Capacitor, a reference to ‘Back to the Future’. They jumped all over me explaining that my Flux Capacitor would be totally useless, without the rest of the equipment in the Delorian that would allow the Flux Capacitor to work.

  “That’s it. Get out. I’m going to bed.” I was done. Subtlety was out the window. They responded with, “Yeah, it is getting late.” …Um, yeah. Go away.   

  A few weeks later it was my birthday. Alan from work invited me to go catch a movie. We went to see “Frequency.” What I didn’t know was that we went under a false pretense. It was actually a trick to get me out of the house while Lori set up a surprise birthday party for me. She even had arranged to have some of my friends from New York call me during the party. What a pleasant and happy surprise it was.

  From work, Eric and his wife, Jennifer and her Husband, Alan, Cathleen, Claudia and even a new girl from work had made an appearance. Her name was Heather, and she was Mormon. She had strict rules or something she needed to follow  because she had left before I even got there. I remember her telling us once that she couldn’t get a haircut by herself and her husband needed to be there. She was very odd. She didn’t stay with the bank very long either. I guess she didn’t approve. No matter, Alan got to attend and his wife never approved of any of us either.