It turns out that as you get older, birthdays get less exciting. I went from pirate themed parties every year, to a Harry Potter themed 21st, to this one. My 22nd birthday, my presents consisted of dog vomit and alcohol. On top of that, the day before my birthday I got sixteen stitches in my back.
Understandably I was a little sore. I took a bunch of pain medicine that made me sleep for a disorienting ten hours.
When I woke up at noon on my birthday, I was less than pleased with the state of the world. I hadn't made any plans for my big day and it hurt to move. More importantly, I could smell Birthday Pie downstairs, and I had three doggy-gates to hurdle in order to reach it.
Normally hurdling a doggy gate is easy for me since I've got such a high dex score.
However, since I'd recently acquired wounds (that look suspiciously like owlbear claws?), I didn't wanna. But I could smell pie. Birthday Pie. So I assessed my options.
At any point I could be assailed by our two dogs. Bulldog and Lab are adolescent bundles of enthusiasm. Bulldog doesn't have a tail, so instead she shakes her body so quickly I'm afraid she's going to phase through the floor Flash style.
So when I finally lumbered downstairs to the first gate and saw the two of them quivering with excitement and heating up the living room with the friction of their wiggly joy, there was a moment of pause.
Being bright and adaptive, though, I quickly found a solution.
Defeating the doggy gates and winning apple pie turned out to be the high point of my day. The pain medicine made me groggy and lethargic, and in spite of suggestive facebook status messages over the past month, no one looked like they went for my surprise party idea. Napping was out of the question, so I moved through the next few hours in a determined state of pseudo-alertness.
At around four I was getting a little stir crazy. The medicine made me a little bit loopy, and in spite of regularly checking our backyard, I didn't see anyone setting up a giant balloon fort for a party. So I did that thing I do when I feel defiant and pathetic at the same time.
I put on a Renaissance gown and assume the "I don't give a what-what" attitude. 90% because nothing proves indifference and nonchalance like a Renn gown on a Thursday, and 10% because I secretly always want to be in a Renn gown.
And while I moped around the house in my defiance attire, Mom offered to go to the liquor store with me for some birthday alcohol. This offer may have had something to do with having to listen to me being defiant and nonchalant all day.
She encouraged me to come with her in spite of my out-of-date attire. "We live in a historical area," she said, "no one will think you're out of place."
So we gated off the living room with my dogs in it so their rampant energy wouldn't burn down the house, and set off for the liquor store.
Turns out, historical area or not, walking into a liquor store dressed like the wrong century is of note. As I strode through the parking lot, one little boy in a soccer uniform grabbed his dad's arm, pointed at me, and said "Daddy, daddy, look at that!"
Pressing on, I retrieved the gin and a tiny bit of dignity, and mom and I returned home, where the dogs were thankfully asleep.
Only when we got closer we discovered the horrible truth.
Motrin surrounded the dogs like confetti. Motrin is one of the oh-god-no things a dog can eat while you're out buying liquor, and they'd had a fiesta in the twenty minutes we'd been gone with the industrial sized bottle I'd left in the living room while nursing my back.
While Mom called the vet, I flailed my arms in a desperate attempt at magic, Bulldog attempted to phase through the floor again, Lab tried to lick my face off, and Samuel L. Jackson kitty, enticed by a high stress moment, decided to punctuate the panic with deeply inquisitive mows.
The vet told us to pour two tablespoon's of hydrogen peroxide down their throats immediately to induce vomiting. Birthday girl got the honors.
After a tense five minutes staring at our dogs and hoping they would barf (not something I thought I'd ever hope for), they finally did. And then they didn't stop.
Bulldog responded like a normal dog and hid in a corner to evacuate her stomach. Co-dependent Lab, however, ran over to me whenever he started to heave so he could bestow his gifts upon me.
