The best 35th birthday so far

Birthday delights. Photo by Roy Colbert.
Birthday delights. Photo by Roy Colbert.
Another birthday gone. A few who thought they were close personal friends, and until last Thursday they assuredly were that, mentioned how old they thought I was, which is hardly something you say to someone on their birthday, is it?

I mean, good grief, do these people cross stick lines off a wall like they're in prison?

Anal. I am 35. And will be for some time.

The day began as it always does, my wife staggering into the bedroom at dawn with a huge bag of presents.

"Prop yourself up, sweetie, it's time to open your presents!" she always says.

And I always reply - "I am propped up, wife, I am not a tall man."

The old chestnuts are invariably the best.

Our son joins the birthday gaggle, eyes weary from an all-night session on the internet poker tables, and I get down to business. The international one first, a package from daughter and grandchildren in Chicago. A magnificent fig and bamboo candle in a tin you would put in a glass case at Te Papa. "We smelled 50 candles to choose this one," she says, "and knocked over two displays."

She means Jude (3) knocked over two displays. And from him and Rowan (6), a painting each.

These could not only hang in Te Papa, they could replace Te Papa. Rowan's depiction of Bird At Beach is startlingly fine, as vivid and colourful as Wayne Seyb at his finest, and grounded in Sydney realism as well to widen aesthetic response. But then again, Rowan is gifted.

Jude's painting was a little more abstract. Zombie Wave And Vegetables. Apparently this was inspired by his favourite computer game, where you collect plants and vegetables to create a perfect and worthy world and then a wave of zombies comes in to defoliate and destroy. Good will triumph over evil if the player has ecological nous and the reflexes of a leopard. The other grandson could be gifted too.

Our son, his wallet fattened by many all-night sessions on the all-night poker tables, gave me a toilet phone, one of those delightful one-day auction deals that have sucked the whole family into a yawning vortex of materialistic acquisition these past 12 months. This is a truly magnificent thing, the phone sitting on top of the cistern. You lift the toilet seat, and there is the number pad. On many of my 35th birthdays I have received no present as good as this, and I have some very rich friends.

The only possible negative feature of the toilet phone is where it shall be placed. As there is an unused phone jack in the front hall, it would seem ideal to greet visitors with this thing in the middle of the floor when they enter the house. But my wife is suggesting it be placed elsewhere, a physically difficult place.

There were the usual thoughtful and useful presents, long johns from the mother-in-law in Christchurch who quaintly believes we need clothing like this in Dunedin, even though she comes from Christchurch, which is the Japanese word for Antarctica.

And 100ml of Paco Rabanne Pour Homme, a man scent that almost defies rational description. Gorgeous. But the meat and drink of the birthday was the food.

Those who understand type 1 diabetes may be alarmed by the following, but this is what I got: one packet of Pam's jumbo marshmallows, two packets of glo-harts, two giant cakes of Whittaker's chocolate (hokey pokey and peanut butter), one bag of Whittaker's Mini Coconut Slabs, two Crunchie bars, one packet of Roadies, one box of Loacker coconut chocolate milk biscuits, six chocolate fish, one packet of Eta honey roasted peanuts, two Cherry Ripe chocolate bars (under-rated), a packet of milk bottles, and, for balance, Pic's peanut butter (lovely, albeit not as good as JD's Homestyle, but you need the Westpac Rescue Helicopter to unscrew the lid) and a tin of Trident smoked oysters.

Unlike most diabetics, I don't count calories, but I think this might be quite a lot. Probably as many as 35.


- Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.

 

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