Birthday Kindness

This year’s birthday turned out to be a bit different than in past years, but much fun nonetheless. I’ve never really been too big on the whole birthday celebrations, it’s really just another day for me for the most part. But other’s were kind enough to take a moment to celebrate it, which was really great.

To start things off my co-workers decided to surprise me with singing For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow at my desk. I almost made an escape as I heard them round the corner, but was too late and they greeted me with song and smiles. It was nice, NGM was kind enough to make me some amazing cupcakes with chocolate frosting. He’s a pretty amazing baker. They also picked out a card with chimpanzees on it, and everyone knows that chimpanzees are awesome. The Moe’s gift card inside was well done as well. I eat lunch there all the time, so eating for free my next couple of visits will be great. Great job guys, nice to know that my co-workers would take the time for such niceness.

The next day which was my actual birthday turned out to be pretty nice too. While the morning was a bit cold, I cannot recall ever having poor weather on my birthday, and was confident that the weather would turn around as the day grew. Luckily I was right and it turned out to be a fine day outside!

I was welcomed to work with more cards and more goodies to eat! Brownies were made for myself and Rich whom shares the same birthday. Though every year when it’s noted to him that we do share the same birthday, he seems surprised by if. Perhaps next year it won’t be a surprise?

In addition to brownies, I also got a bucket of pretzel rods and a bag of peanut chews. All good stuff, but I’m fearing that I will be getting plump or plumper perhaps. I also got a little Mario Kart figure from the Rat, which turned out to be Luigi! I was pretty pumped by this, he was the one I wanted most from that mystery pack!

Though my favorite turned out to be The Pocket Unicorn card from the Rat. It had a detachable unicorn that would utter accurate rainbow unicorn sayings at the press of a button. It was pretty amazing, and I’m kinda shocked that I haven’t killed the batteries on it just yet!

After work my parents made chicken parm, which is a fine birthday dinner (thank god there was no cauliflower or mushrooms to be seen). They were also kind enough to give me a card and some cash in it as well. I know I’m probably the only person in the world who didn’t want cash, but I will make certain to purchase myself a gift with it! They also got me an ice cream cake, but that would have to wait as we had very important kickball game in just a few minutes!

When I got to the kickball field I was greeted with happy birthday wishes from the Commish and Dustin. As other kickballers arrived, many took a moment to share greetings as well. I suppose we can thank Facebook for spreading the word out so far and fast now.

What really turned out to be a most pleasant surprise was that our team really went all out in surprising me with some birthday goodness! Brittany showed up with an embarrassing birthday hat that they would insist I wore at some point. I’m not familiar with the tradition of embarrassing the birthday person by wearing a hat (by the way, I never wear hats so it felt most foreign atop my head), but they meant well so I went along.

Then John B. shows up with a custom made card too! This thing was truly a work of art! It had a hand drawn Raiders logo, kickball on it and some powerful writing inside it. What a great guy to take the time to make that!

Fierce showed up with a tray of brownies for all! Not only brownies, but fancy brownies with icing and blue dust on them too! They were very, very delicious but I saved them for after the game. I didn’t want to be slowed down during the game. Meghan also came bearing a massive bag of assorted candy (I’m still wondering how all this candy will ever be consumed). Good stuff abounded in that glorious bad of sweetness!

After our big victory (which had some unlikely heroes), I got even more birthday stuff from the team!

Sean presented me with a certificate from the team, which was funny since I always give them certificates. And I also got a card with an awesome dog on it signed by the team and Barack Obama as well! So thoughtful!

What an amazing bunch I am fortunate to play with! They really went above and beyond what anyone could ever expect. I genuinely felt like the luckiest guy on that field.

Just when I thought that birthday goodness couldn’t be topped, Fierce gave me a bag of awesomeness! In it contained a Mario Kart building block set with Toad and a TMNT Lego set with Michelangelo and Krang! The evil alien brain Krang is so amazing, I can’t believe she picked out the set he was in! She is awesome!

Again, what a surprising turn of events I had this year for my birthday. I really am lucky to have such thoughtful people in my life. And a couple of them are pretty excellent kickball players as well, which is always a plus.