The Birthday

“Well, I’m 18 now and officially the most embarrassed person ALIVE!!!”

God Damn it.

I blocked parts of my 18th birthday from memory until I read this page. Usually I can look back on the embarrassing moments of my life and laugh, or think “ohhh that wasn’t so bad.” This is not one of those times. Honestly, this might be the only memory that forms instantaneous puke bubbles in my throat. Even as I type this, I’m sipping on Alka-Seltzer and swallowing long-forgotten pride. Ok, here we go-

My birthday is June 12th, so I didn’t turn 18 until after we had graduated. The last day of school I told everyone about my party. It was going to be in my Mom’s backyard and there would cake and no alcohol because I was a square. I expected my group of friends to be there and maybe a few stragglers. There ended up being a shit ton of people and for the first two hours it was a blast. Shortly after the fun part, three specific and terrible things happened. Let’s go through each of these in bloody detail.

My guests and I were grilling burgers outside when an angelic mist rolled in, I thought I heard harp strings and suddenly MATT rounds the corner of MY backyard. (For you faithful followers, I’m referring to the same Matt who made an appearance in “retard”). Matt was the love of my high school heart. What was he DOING there? I suppose I had invited him, but not in a million years did I think he would show up. He sauntered in with his bff’s Ben and Danny. I suspect they’re the ones that dragged him to the party. I was on better terms with them, considering I didn’t turn into a drooling, fat, hopeful troll when they were around.

I immediately darted inside for a hairbrush. I don’t know why. A hairbrush!? Yea, unless that hairbrush could comb away four years of awkward encounters, it probably wasn’t going to help. I ran for it anyways, because I had nothing left to lose, or so I thought.

#1 Terrible thing:
First things first- some fucking genius decides that we should all play VOLLEYBALL. Let me reiterate that I have NO athletic skills and hate sports of all kind. I’m also terrified of flying balls. It was going to take all of my energy not to scream anytime the ball came over the net. But, Matt was going to be on my team, so I had to suck it up.

I ran around and flailed my arms a couple of times, pretending to “just miss it”. Unfortunately, there’s a little thing called serving, and it was now my turn. I saw no way out, so I made my way to the back of the grass court. The first time I threw the ball into the air it landed near my foot, untouched. Biffed. The second time I managed to nick the ball and also hit myself in the throat with my serving hand. I choked and spat because my hand was in a fist. I had managed to punch myself in the throat.

I was hoping this would be the end. Usually you get two turns to serve, and if you can’t manage something by then, you’re out. But everybody lobbied for me, “She’s the birthday girl! Serve it again Courtney!” I wanted everyone to fall down dead. Couldn’t they see what torture this was for me?

I get back in position, trying to see the light at the end of this volleyball hell
tunnel and I threw the ball up as high as I could. It came down hard on my wrist and (terrified) I smacked it away with my open palm. It flew magnificently through the air, and completely sideways. Matt was slowly turning around to see what had happened just as the ball smashed into the side of his face.

I let out an asthmatic gurgle while his head spun sideways from impact. Everyone started laughing and cheering. I ran over to him, blaring “OH MY GOD I’M SO SORRY, I’M SO SO SO SORRY! OH MY GOD!” He said it was fine, rubbed his damaged ear and walked towards the house. Needless to say, the volleyball game was over.

#2 Terrible Thing:
Shortly after the volleyball catastrophe everyone wanted me to open presents. Okay, now THIS was something I could do. I can accept gifts graciously and there isn’t a lot of hand-eye coordination involved. I figured it would be a safe place for me and all my guests. Everything was going smoothly until I opened up a rather flashy looking card. Out of it fell a 5x7 of Matt in skin tight pants, promoting his ass to the camera. I don’t remember who the sender was, but whoever gave me no warning. I snatched up the picture and put it face down on the floor. People started grabbing for it, asking “What is it? Come on! Show us!” I frantically looked around the room and decided I was going to eat the picture. Instead I made a snap decision and screamed, “IT’S A PICTURE OF ME NAKED!”

I don’t know why I did that. I could have said it was anything but I went with me, naked. This was no better than what the picture actually WAS, but it worked. Nobody wanted to see it after that. I stole a side-glance towards Matt. I don’t know if he had seen the picture, or if he was just thinking how gross it was for one of my friends to give me a picture of myself naked as a birthday gift- but either way he looked disturbed.

#3 Terrible Thing:
And this is by far the worst. After presents and before the cake, Danny (one of Matt’s friends) asked if he could check his email. I instantly had an ominous feeling about this, but was uncertain as to why. I said, “sure” as he sat down and clicked on the POWER button. Matt and Ben came up behind him and just as the computer was starting up, I realized what that funny feeling was. I spun around, but it was too late. There on the computer desktop wallpaper…was Matt. And it wasn’t enough for me to just put a picture of him on my computer. Oh no, I had it TILED all the way around the screen. He and his best friends were now staring at 400 images of Matt’s face. Worse yet was that it had been captured while he was in the 8th grade, before I even knew him. He didn’t even seem aware that the picture was being taken. It looked like it was taken on the sly by some sort of stealth photographer. It appeared as if I had stalked him for half his life- taking pictures whenever I could with my spy camera.

I squeaked and turned bright fuchsia. Danny quickly clicked on something else and the embarrassment montage disappeared. I started laughing nervously and ran up the basement steps to go outside. Ben followed, and I don’t remember what kind of uncomfortable exchange we had. I tried to blame the picture on the person who had given it to me, but he looked skeptical. I think we all just decided to let it go, because there was nothing to say that would make it better. At this point, I was officially the most awkward teenager on the planet. Nobody said anything to me about it, not even Matt. I had acquired enough regret in one evening to last a lifetime, and I’m assuming they thought that was punishment enough.

Sometime later we were goofing around outside and Matt “accidentally” knocked my disposable camera into a bucket of water. He left immediately. I was certain he was just reacting to that evening’s traumatizing events. How did he know where those birthday pictures would have ended up? The way things were going, it was logical for him to conclude that my next step was to tattoo them onto my body. Could I blame him? No. Everywhere he looked that night, there was another creepy picture of himself he had forgotten about. I would have “accidentally” thrown my camera in a bucket of water too.

Here’s the kicker though; this story has a twist ending. About an hour later Matt returned to my house of humiliation, and he was carrying a small bag. Inside this small bag was
a disposable camera. He had felt so badly about ruining my camera that he went out and bought me another one. He apologized profusely and told me happy birthday. I thanked him, without looking him directly in the eye (because come on, you read the story). As he walked away I was smiling like a crazed clown. Somehow I mustered up some courage and cried out “BYE MATT! THANKS! SEE YA LATER!” He waved back and turned the corner. It didn’t erase everything else that happened, but it definitely put a polish on it. That was the last time I ever saw him in person, and honestly, I hope it stays that way.