Death For My Birthday

Before I begin, I must warn you of a few things. This story truly angers me. It’s funny, but infuriating for me at the same time. I now refer to it as "The Pretty Boy Birthday Card Debacle"

As with most good stories, it’s about a girl. Her name was Teri. I met her while at Kirkwood, when I was in choir and while doing stuff in the theatre. We pretty much hung out in the same area with the same group of people. She was cute, so I sacked up and began talking to her one day. Eventually, she asked when my birthday was. March 7. “Oh my God, so is mine!” Awesome, I’m in! Right?

Wrong. We talked more and more and she added me on Facebook. This was before Facebook was the stalker’s handbook. Well, as our shared birthday grew closer, I had a party set up with my friends. My friends Stan and Jesse were going to cook an awesome dinner, then serve some snacks for the party after the dinner. The dinner consisted of about 20 people, all of whom were close friends and their significant others. The party, however, was about 50 people. Not all at once, mind you, people floated in and out, but Stan and Jesse left after their clean up.

This is a small break from the story, but I want to take a moment to talk about Stan and Jesse’s meal. It cost all together about $300. So we had to charge the dinner guests $5 to cover it, most of which ended up getting covered by me, Stan, or Jesse, anyway. People were pissed, but we decided it was the only way to do it. And there was no way to weed out people, otherwise they’d be pissed they didn’t get to have the dinner. Either way, it was a lose-lose situation. It was a glorious and delicious meal that apparently only the three of us enjoyed. Everyone else bitched about the meal for one reason or another, and those who didn’t had a problem with the snacks. I want to go on record as saying that it was a fantastic meal, and because of Stan and Jesse, it was the BEST birthday I’ve ever had. And I thank them for being so cool about all the shit they had to do and the 14 hour day they put in for it. I appreciate it.

Back to the story: So when inviting people to the party, I figured I should invite Teri. She said yes, so I was excited. The day of the party, she called and asked if she could bring a friend with her. Sure, why not, the more the merrier! I told my roommate at the time, Cory. His response was “dude that’s awesome, maybe you’ll get lucky!” Oh, Cory, how I love you.

Now I know I can’t list everyone who was at the party, I honestly can’t REMEMBER most of the party. I do need to make special mention of a few key characters. Jack and April, the married couple, came and brought me a can of Colt 45 for my birthday. I never drank it. Cory’s friend Jim came down, whom I’d only met once. When Teri and her friend Joy finally came, I was kind of nervous to talk to her. It’s good to mention that as charming and awesome as I am, I have never been able to talk well around girls I had crushes on. The few that I could (and can) were special exceptions and if they’re reading this right now, you should feel special.

So for the first hour or so that the girls were there, Cory and Jim talked to them the whole time. Every time I tried to join in, Jim would push me out of the way. Literally. So I would walk away and join Jack and April to bitch to them what was happening. They got pissed about it and dragged Cory out to talk to him. They told him about what was going on, so when he rejoined the group, he began talking me up like I was Jesus himself. He may have in fact ACTUALLY said I was Jesus. With him, you never really know what’s going to come out of his mouth.

Jack and April had their own plan to get me in with Teri, as well. Cory had an iPod hooked up to the stereo system in the basement, so they went over to it and started playing slow songs. They turned my party into an 8th grade school dance, complete with hands on the hips, hands on the shoulders dancing. I had just turned 21 so, of course, I must be in 8th grade. Well, whatever, it worked. Teri danced with me, Cory danced with Joy, and Jim stood in the corner and watched. Revenge is sweet, my friends.

At the end of the night, Teri invited me to a party she was throwing the following week at her apartment to celebrate her and Joy’s birthday. Cory and Joy had apparently hit it off, because he got the same invite. We were psyched, so we began thinking of a brilliant birthday present. One day, Cory calls me while he’s at work.

“I got it!” Before I even said hello.
“The Clap?”
“No! The birthday present!”
“Okay…”
“We’re going to make a card!”
“That’s lame.”
“No, it’s going to be a HUGE card with our pictures inside!”
“I don’t follow…”

He laid out the entire plan for me. We buy a giant piece of construction paper, a glue stick, some glitter, a disposable camera, and a Teen Beat magazine. That’s right, a TEEN BEAT MAGAZINE! Where could this possibly be going? The plan was to cut out pictures of “pretty boys” and paste them on the cover of this card with the words “We wanted a bunch of cute guys to say Happy Birthday to you…” and then on the inside there would be a slew of pictures of Cory and me in different outfits and the words “…But all we could find were these guys.” Okay, I thought it was clever, so I was down with it.

We went to work on the card immediately. Two days before, we decided to do our little photo shoot and get drunk while doing it. It was a lot of fun putting in the work for this card. We got the photos developed the next day, and that night we started pasting the pictures on the card. While cutting out pictures from the Teen Beat, we noticed a lot of Pete Wentz from Fallout Boy was on it. Well, Teri liked Fallout Boy, so we decided to put them ALL on the card. We had so many pictures of “cute boys” on the front of that thing, the magazine was basically just tatters. And, the coup de grace, on the back we had a big picture of Mr. Wentz with the caption “In case you didn’t get enough Pete Wentz.” We thought it was hilarious.

That Saturday, we went to the party, card in hand in a gigantic envelope that Cory made, which… I really can’t remember how he made that. It also had a fake stamp of Abraham Lincoln that said “Great Mistakes in History: “Well I don’t really WANT to go to the theatre, but I have these tickets…” Brilliant joke, in my opinion. Anyway, we get to the party and it consists of Teri, Joy, and three of their friends from High School, one of whom earned the nickname Chad, somehow. There is no story behind it; we just didn’t know her name, so Cory called her Chad. Well, the entire night, Cory and I got snubbed by Teri and Joy. We gave them the card, expecting an “Oh my God, that’s so funny and awesome” but instead got “Look at all the cute boys on the front!” We told them to read it, and they did, but they didn’t as much as GLANCE at our pictures. They finished reading it and went right back to “cute boys on the cover. Why is there no Zac Efron?!” This phrase would come to haunt us. We had pictures of this kid, but didn’t know who he was at the time, so we didn’t think they would either. Oh, boy, were we mistaken.

About an hour into this party, after playing a board game with the ice queens and their friends, Teri had a “brilliant” idea. “Let’s dance!” Okay, then. Cory and I sat back and watched because, well, there’s nothing cuter than a group of girls dancing. Teri went and got what I thought was a CD and put it in her DVD player. Okay, still. She turned on the TV and my jaw dropped. She had put in High School Musical. THE MOVIE!!! Apparently, there is a special “Dance-along” feature, which she then proceeded to dance along with, followed by Joy, Chad, and the other two who I don’t even care to remember their names. They danced along with the movie, and Cory and I did the movie-slow-head-turn to look at each other. He mouthed the word “Bail” and I nodded. As soon as the girls were done dancing, we stood up and said our goodbyes and walked out the door. As soon as it was closed behind us, we RAN to our cars.

“I think tonight’s a good night to get drunk, don’t you?” Cory asked.
“Oh, definitely. “

So we stopped and grabbed a 24 pack of beer and went home where we proceeded to try and drink the night away from our memory. Obviously, that didn’t work or you wouldn’t be reading this story right now. We both deleted the girls’ numbers from our phones and never talked to them again. That didn’t seem to bother Teri, so I’m okay with it. In fact, I saw her at a party a couple years ago and STILL haven’t talked to her.

Cory eventually talked to Joy again, and got this explanation for their behavior: “Well, it was originally going to be a party when we invited you, but then no one showed up but us five girls, so we were turning it into kind of a high school reunion thing, and then you guys showed up. Sorry we snubbed you.” At least SHE had the decency to apologize and explain it. I still saw Teri in the hall at school and never once did she try talking to me again. Hence, my anger toward this situation. To this day, I have never and never plan to see High School Musical or its sequels. I don’t care if the music is “catchy.” Oh, and for those of you who may not know, Zac Efron is the lead actor in High School Musical. I guess that should have been an early clue as to the mindset these girls were in.

Except for Chad. Chad was the shit.