Just call it a day

I'm not too sure which was more fun - cutting my birthday cake four days before my birthday in the office pantry ("We wanted to surprise you, hence the early celebration." was my team's explanation) or reading the creative emails forwarded to me afterwards.

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From: GM [very creative member of my team]
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 11:38 AM
To: [My team]
Cc: [My lunch group]
Subject: important date

On 13th April, a little girl was born.

She grew up to have many adventures, and became the leader of a band of marauding raiders who sack the Boston Coast [my team reports to the Boston office] from time to time.

She now reclines languidly against the big-ass pillar of protection and looks over the land through a far-seeing glass.

In gratitude for her leadership, the Boston Raiders are planning a feast to celebrate her day of birth.

Join us in contributing ideas for the celebration, or the Raiders will pillage your cubicle!

-A very sleep-deprived GM

From: GK [yet another creative team member]
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 5:12 PM
To: [My team, My lunch buddies, other Team Leaders]
Subject: Re: important date

Fantasy version (written by our budding fantasy story author GM!)

Join the Boston Raiders in their great feast – a vast celebration of the birth of our leader!

In preparation for the feast, the Raiders have planned to pillage some nearby villages for the following:

Food
- One entire roast chicken for our leader, adorned with a magic sparkler that will make her wishes come true (any varmint caught sullying the chicken will be made a slave to be given to the PAs for the year)

- Corn muffins (or other baked goods) kindly volunteered by our Guardian Valkyrie in Pink [colleague of mine who like everything pink and even sports a pink parachute...errr I mean parasol]. She will dispense the baked goods at the needed time with a twirl of her mighty Parasol.

- Insert other food items of choice – what can you grab while pillaging? Don’t get too distracted by the women, and no furtive gorging!

Drink
In view of the latest Prohibition from On High, the Raiders are off the beer/wine-wagon.

Please grab whatever drinkables you can find, or suggest a few types and we will plan a raiding party to obtain them.

And the simple version:

We are holding a birthday celebration for Sayesha tomorrow. Her actual birthday is this Sunday but we wanna surprise her (and GM is out of office from this Thursday onwards) so the best day would be tomorrow… I hope there are no violent objections.

Thank you all so much for your kind contributions. We are going to get a card (which everyone will have to sign really quickly!), a cake and a gift during lunchtime tomorrow… and apparently a roast chicken, I dunno why! If anyone has any other bright ideas, please feel free to chip in.

The details are as follows:
Time: 3.30pm
Place: Pantry
Note: Please do not walk to the pantry in a big group.

Hope everyone can make it!
From: Team Boston

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The older you get, you start realising what a fool you had been all these years to actually consider birthdays "happy" occasions. What is there to be happy about anyway? With each passing year, you get farther from people and farther from yourself, you discover more flaws, more disappointments, more regrets, more judgement, more cynicism, more things (and people) that annoy you, and more things that don't matter. I know there's supposed to be a textbook list of GTAGO (Good Things About Growing Older) but frankly speaking, at this point in time, it seems like a rather bullshitty list. And when the guy who matters the most is sent by his 'village leader' to the other side of the world, there's no end to TLODTTTAAYBA (The List Of Depressing Things To Think About As Your Birthday Approaches).

I guess that's the reason why your loved ones sing really loudly on your birthday and stress on the "HAPPY" in "Happy Birthday to you!" multiple times.

To distract you from how depressing birthdays really are.

Ah well, it worked. :)

Thanks, dear colleagues (and ex-colleague who not only still remembers my birthday but also how much I love cheesecake). Kinda reminded me that life's still good. I still have things (and people) I love and those that love me. Love you guys, for the very successful attempt at cheering me up. Love to be working with you. Love my job.

Ahem, not a big fan of Viv's though. :/