This year people born on the 29th of February will not have a birthday. It is a quirk of the calendar system. Plenty on that in a year or three later.
Birthdays are supposed to be joyous times. One more spin around the sun, one year closer to graduation — or one more year to cause consternation, constipation and conviviality with the world at large.
In that mode of thought, here is a birthday greeting to those who will not have a birthday this year.
You lift one eyebrow to look at the clock. The thing does nothing but smile. The dog, cat and chicken take the eyebrow raise as a sign for breakfast. You perform ablutions and somehow a semi-respectable being emerges. Wrong slippers on the wrong feet, robe on and banged shin complete the picture.
The cornflakes are limp. The milk is about to sour. The coffee spits at you. Your eggs runneth over and the toast burns. And the radio bleats a blast from your past that was the worst song ever.
You’ve been awake for only 30 minutes and you’re already multitasking. The phone rings as you gobble with the chicken. The dog holds your leash. It is your boss. The printer is jammed. Oh, and that big project everyone worked on? They need a copy now.
Throwing coffee at your throat, grabbing a tie and the keys, you haul your sorry, flea-bitten hide out the door, down the steps and into the car. The chicken clucks, the dog slobbers and the cat hisses. Nobody’s hurt. Good.
“Start car,” you say to the phone. The phone says, “I am not a car.” Banging the dashboard, you hit the start button and the beast roars to life, flames out the tailpipe. Jamming the foot down on the cat and shifting into gear, you back out into the street. You’re off in a woof.
And just about the moment when you arrive at the office, you wake.
Happy Birthday. Don’t forget your pants.
Orpheus Allison is a photojournalist living in The County who graduated from UMPI and earned a master of liberal arts degree from the University of North Carolina. He began his journalism career at WAGM television, worked around the U.S., and later changed careers and taught in China and Korea.
