August Birthdays are the Worst, and Here’s Why…

Before you go and rip me a new one, hear me out. You might actually agree with me.

Birthdays. Obviously, they only come once a year, unless you're one of those people that have to have a birthday week, weekend, or month, then you need to go away. If I could change mine, I'd move it to May or June.

Seriously, I HATE my birthday (August 24th). And here's why...

As a kid, I couldn't wait for the day the summer vacation started. I really didn't like school, even though I was a solid 'B' student (at least I tell myself that). But whenever I thought about my birthday and the month of August the only thing I would think of is school.

August is the unofficial month of back to school shopping. Remembering back now, I think one of the reasons I hated my birthday was because right around the end of the month we would go get supplies for school. And everyone knows that you should really start getting supplies a month before when the good stuff is available. It felt like we would take F O R E V E R to do our shopping because, 1. Nothing was left, and 2. My little brothers would be with us so multiply the length of shopping by three. For a kid, 6 hours is a lifetime!

Speaking of school, let's talk about the summer work. I would always wait until last minute to do it all. We talking reading, book reports, social studies, and math, lots of math. And when I say last minute I mean the final two weeks of August, which of course my birthday resides in. This one I can blame myself for, but still, who gives out summer work?! Teach it during the school year!

Let's move on. When I was growing up my mother would drag us to get fitted for our school uniforms. I went to catholic school from 1st grade to 8th, and one day she would load me and my younger brothers all in the van and take us to Flynn O' Hara for the day. The drive took forever, and that was the last thing I wanted to do on my vacation.

The weather also plays a factor. There was a good stretch of time from my 7th-10th birthday where I would always want to do something outside for my birthday, whether it be go to Six Flags, the beach, or something simple like mini-golf.

I can remember this like it was yesterday. For my 8th birthday I wanted to go mini-golfing really, really bad. My mother booked a party room at Swingtime Golf. Awesome place. I was thrilled. All my friends were coming, we were going to play mini golf, hit up the batting cage, and eat some pizza. That was until the day of. When I say it was a monsoon outside, it was a monsoon. That prevented me doing the only thing I wanted to do for my birthday. We had to relegate ourselves to the not as fun indoor arcade. We blew threw that in 5 minutes because there were so few games. I never recovered. Maybe that's why I am so gung-ho about going mini-golfing in my adult years...

I could probably go on, but why torture yourself? Me and August have been chill as I got older, now, like an adult, I just drink the day away and mourn that I am one year further away from the glory days that was my childhood.

I can't wait to read this next Friday on my actual birthday.

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