But my crotch looks amazing

Friday was my birthday.

I'm gonna be honest - I wasn't feeling it. The baby had been up repeatedly, all night long. I had appointments and obligations - none of them involving a massage or a pedicure. Which was unfortunate. And my hair looked like crap. A perfectly good day can go right down the toilet when my hair looks like crap.

What. Don't judge me. I have hair related issues.

Moving on.

So I was awake early, and overtired, and rushing around, and the hair with the crap-looking, and the appointments to get to. Happy birthday to nobody, that's who.

I stopped in to the office - it was supposed to be a quick visit which turned into a full-blown intervention with a crazy who was also having a seriously bad hair day. I felt for her, on so many levels, but when she started crying and trying to pass out food from a greasy, crumpled bag she had pulled out of the bottom of her purse, something in me just snapped. An OCD something. The only thought that I could process was that she had to be escorted out of the office with her garbage bag of clothing RIGHT AWAY.
And then retrieved from the bathroom where she was busily upending the trash can looking for cigarettes and talking to herself.
I finally talked her into a cab to the hospital.
She also needed a trip to the salon, but you know - priorities.

Now running late for the rest of my life, I raced across town to have all of the hair ripped off of my crotch because nothing says happy birthday like that, boy howdy.

And then I hobbled into Walmart. I will stop right now and tell you that you should never, ever, ever go to Walmart on your birthday. Or on a bad hair day. It smells funny and the lighting is terrible and even though you know you still look better then 95% of the other customers because your boobs aren't tucked into your pants, you feel like cheap dirty imported crap afterwards.

I got home and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror - something I do about once every 3 or 4 days basically to assess how badly I need a shampoo, or to check my shirt for baby spit up. And it was clear that I needed a lot more than a shampoo and a clean shirt. I called the salon down the street and asked if they could do a quick trim. 30 minutes later I was back home, with a bad haircut and an even worse attitude. I looked like I had cut it myself with kitchen shears, missing a few key spots along the way. I am not good at explaining things to stylists, but I am pretty sure "refugee" was not the look I had described.

Now I was in a really terrible mood. Hair grows back, but the attitude needed to be adjusted pronto.

At about that time, it occured to me that it was getting close to dinner, and not a single one of my relatives had called yet to wish me a Happy Birthday. I wasn't too concerned - I forget to call people on their birthdays sometims, and I concluded that perhaps they were going to call me at bedtime - at least my mom would. Surely my own mother would call to say happy birthday to her firstborn! Her only daughter!

Which reminds me: Cake.

My mother is the birthday cake hook up. And thinking of my mother, and then of cake, reminded me that I had not caught wind of a cake - a fact that was now causing me no small amount of concern. My haircut was forgotten in the pursuit of cake. Phonecalls from family are not mandatory, and I don't need presents, but damned if I am going to go through my birthday without some sort of cake.

And leftover cake.

Which might be the most important part of the cake.

WHERE WAS MY CAKE?

But wait! Maybe the cake was going to be served at dinner! We were going out, I reassured myself. Surely, he will have cake for me at dinner! I got dressed in the new dress I bought last week.

Heading out the door, I reached over to grab something off the kitchen counter and the dress fell down.

Houston, we have a problem.

Undeterred, I grabbed a brooch, pinned that sucker tight, and kept going. As I climbed in the car, it fell down again. This was a theme of the evening. It turns out that a backless dress needs to have a pretty significant amount of structure in order to not fall off. This dress was knit. And sleeveless. And shapeless.

I was screwed.

The best course of action was to begin drinking. And I was given a tiara which covered up the chopped hair nicely. And a lei which helped to keep the dress up. And I spent the evening with my friends, laughing and eating and drinking and singing. I got gifts and cards and hugs and cheers. I got a shout-out from the band and a bacon milk shake. And I went to bed tired and happy.

I didn't get any cake, and my family never did call that day, and the hair really is pretty bad.

But my crotch looks amazing.

I guess you'll just have to trust me on that.