“What makes birthdays so awful?” I can hear the readers asking as they (reluctantly) read this essay. To answer this question, we need to look at the components that make birthdays terrible. For example, birthday parties take up too much time and effort with little return, and the fact that when you don’t set up parties, birthdays are just overrated occasions where someone still manages to sneak a sweater in that treasure trove of presents. First of all, don’t even get me started on the parties. When YOU are the one setting them up, not your parents, you find out that they’re mostly ridiculous, time consuming, and noisy. And if you don’t plan on having one, you realize that people are exaggerating on the good parts about birthdays. Honestly, it’s all about the party, which you’re missing out on by not wasting a week or two of your life getting it planned.

The first thing that sucks about birthdays is how much time it takes. When you decide to have a birthday party, you have to make it a week before your birthday even starts. By then, you’ll have to make reservations/ prepare your home, contact friends to go to your birthday (let’s face it, without them you’d look pathetic), and if you don’t have any friends, try to make your relatives come over instead. The most exhausting thing about preparing, however, is when you have to turn in all the homework you forgot to do. And the worst part about it is when your whole party turns into a big, heaping, mess. You’ll have to clean up everything, and you’ll never want to try this again. If, in fact, your parents had to prepare the party, God bless their soul. Unfortunately, I have experience with this type of birthday party. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but it wasn’t that bad until we realized what had happened to the living room.

On the other hand, if were actually smart enough to avoid that disaster, you’ll still lose the game. While congratulating yourself on dodging that bullet, another will come heading your way. You’ll realize that as a whole, birthdays don’t mean anything. A little pat on the back, a cheer or two, maybe a little birthday song, and that’s it. Oh, and a stupid slice of cake (I hate cake). But without the party, birthdays don’t matter. You can’t find the mental capability to care. When you get older, you think of age as a disease, and birthdays being an unpleasant pill. And without birthday parties, you can’t get that pill down. You might find yourself hating birthdays, even though you were the one who didn’t want to waste time preparing for it. And yes, this is just my alter ego talking, so most of what I’m saying is just my opinion. Complain all you want about my point of view, I don’t care. This isn’t a blog. End of discussion.

Continuing on what we just mentioned, if you do manage to make the best birthday party without wasting any time, which is highly unlikely, congratulations. Whoop-de-doo. Now just try making that happen for the next few decades of your life. This entire essay is giving you a very early warning: even if you can escape your age, you can’t escape daily life. The time you spent on birthdays instead of work will come back to bite you in the rear. You probably don’t know what I’m talking about, and that’s because you’re not like twenty- something years old yet. But for now, just celebrate, even though you know that your image of that special day will be ruined forever. Happy birthday, retard! Anyway, enjoy your life. Just keep in mind that later on, you’ll skip a lot of birthdays.