Especially the cake! I love cake! That is, unless it’s my birthday. It’s not turning a year older that bothers me, usually, but maybe more so being the center of attention. Some people I know declare birthday weeks. Some declare birthday months. I don’t declare it at all. I even skirt the question if someone asks me directly. And I definitely don’t have it on my Facebook page. I just try to get through it as quietly as possible.

This year it was going along as planned. A card and cake from my mom. A plant for my new apartment from my brother. Some texts and emails. I was on course to get through the day unscathed. That is, until a couple of beers with some buddies at a sports bar in the evening and a birthday lunch a couple days later with some more friends. Why? The dreaded singing wait staff. I had gone my whole life without being the muse for this group and I got hit twice in two days!

I don’t think there’s anyone that hasn’t witnessed this parade of embarrassment at a restaurant. Waiters, waitresses, bartenders, kitchen staff, whoever is available, marching out from behind those swinging kitchen doors with some dessert all aflame, bellowing out some company scripted googaly guck about there being a “birthday in the house,” followed with some proprietary birthday chant. And if that isn’t enough, other diners join in (full disclosure, I’m okay with being one of the “other diners”). I couldn’t do a thing about it. Because what I really wanted to say to this merry group, to loosely paraphrase my favorite movie, “leave the cake, take a hike.” But I couldn’t. I had to sit there and take it while my friends reveled in my surprise and discomfort. I was the center of attention.

Later, when I gave it some thought I realized that this grandiose pastry delivery really wasn’t about my birthday or me. It was about my friends letting me know that they care. It’s really as simple as that. And for that I’m incredibly thankful. Well, for that and the cake.