Mike – Three quick things, regarding your mother’s most recent post, and your encroaching dotage.
1) It’s endearing that you celebrate your own birthday by sending flowers to the woman who brought you into the world.
2) It’s disturbing that you would spell out the “sweating, pushing, straining, and farting” that purportedly accompanied your birth.
3) It’s shocking and delightful that Peggy would share your words with her many followers, who must now grapple with the image of your sweaty mother farting and sweating during your noisy emergence, 60 years ago.
And so, we have a post that’s endearing, disturbing, shocking, and delightful in equal parts. Hard to know how to respond to such a strange concoction of sentiment, so I’ll just say Happy Birthday, and wish you both a pleasant day. Also, I’m curious – did your parents send you a gift?
Sam Hineman
Hi Sam
Thanks for the kind words. I can’t disagree with your observations, and can only say – in my defense – that I didn’t think my mother would share the card that accompanied the flowers. I wrote what I wrote partly because I’m pretty sure that all births require a measure of “sweating, straining, pushing, and farting,” but mostly, because I knew that somebody would have to type the message out on my behalf. That pleased me in ways that probably shouldn’t delight a sixty-year-old to this extent, but whatever. I am what I am.
As for gifts, no. What she gave me 60 years ago was more than enough. The truth is, my family isn’t big on birthdays. In fact, we kind of hate them. This year, my mother sent me a Christmas Card for my birthday with six dollars in it.
Mike