Duncan turns 18

Steve put the most effort into Duncan’s birthday, buy a noise maker and cans of plastic string that extrude out of tips to cover the birthday person. 

Neither Steve nor Rebecca were totally capable of keeping the string pointed at Duncan, and both of them being on opposite sides of the bed, did manage to have some of the overflow hit the other. But this was all in fun – to start celebrating this day  at 7 am with the story of Duncan’s birthday, even down to the last bit of minutiae: the minute he was born. 6 / 49

Rebecca had Steve go right out and buy a lottery ticket that day, but winning didn’t happen. The birth of a new baby was enough. And now Duncan was given the chance to plan his own party. Time. Place. Happenings. He wanted it to start in the evening, food being ordered in and then either play board games or something else of his choosing, though what that would be, he wasn’t sure of at 7:00 am.

I have never ordered take-out food to be delivered to my house ever – just one of those things I forgot to do in life. In light of this and in full spirit of a birthday party, I pulled up a chair close to Rebecca while we went to the internet to see the take-out order from the Purple Garden. Rebecca wrote down the suggestions: 2 sweet and sour pork, one noodle dish, salt and pepper squid for Steve and I can’t remember the fourth dish, since it didn’t matter anyway. When we finally got to the end of the page, we read *Closed Tuesdays. And yes, even a phone call there, in case we were reading wrong, confirmed that the take-out was not going to be Chinese last night. Rebecca was willing to order from any Chinese take-out on Shelbourne Street, but it was Duncan’s birthday and he wondered if he made a switch to pizza if it would be alright: 2 pepperoni, one meat loves and of that, one of them with a stuffed crust. I had to be told what stuffed crust means, which only shows I really don’t know how to order take-out.

Duncan made me laugh when we got home. To keep his appetite up for the take-out party at night, he went to have his lunch at Subway, but only ordered a 6”, instead of a 12” pizza, preserving room, or maybe reserving some space in his stomach for the evening.  Duncan told his dad that he had never noticed it was only a $2 saving to order half as much, which didn't seem right to him.

Over the years, Duncan has always asked for a Dairy Queen Ice-Cream cake. To make the inscription clear on his cake to others, when he was a little guy and had received some education on the reproduction of the human body at school, he came home and told his parents that as a sperm there had been a great race and the reason he was born was because he had won the Race of Life. Sometimes a person says something when they are young and parents remember it forever, or at least until the 18th birthday when the phrase is transcripted to the top of an ice-cream cake.

 One of Rebecca’s colleagues saw the picture this morning, and asked Rebecca, “What exactly did you say to the person who was going to write this on the cake.

Rebecca replied, “Oh the truth, on the cake I would like a sperm with a face that has curly brown hair on it and these words ….”

 Yes.

 Sometimes it is better to just tell the truth.

I thought we would be playing board games all night. But Duncan wanted to show everyone the Dolphin piece from the Blue Planet, which made a lovely evening: a large screen, a warm room and ice-cream cake.

Happy Birthday, Duncan. Congratulations at winning the race of life.

Arta