Cheap Things

I generally don't participate in the Facebook birthday wall thing, but today I had three friends with the same birthday, and FB conveniently let me write on all of their walls right there from my homepage, so I figured it couldn't hurt. I wrote nice birthday wishes. They probably won't even read them. So what I could and maybe should have written was this:

Man, every year you do such a fantastic job of aging. It's almost like time goes by without any help from you. Give yourself a pat on the back. Go you.

I mean, if I'm not going to buy them anything, what's the difference?

I love getting mail, but sometimes when someone makes the effort to send me a card, they just sign it. No words. No money (not that it's necessary). It's just a piece of paper they bought, put their name on, wrapped in another piece of paper they bought, and put a sticky piece of paper they bought on top so someone would deliver it to my house. At best, it's a sentiment someone else wrote, or a trite message and a picture of a cat. At worst, it's actually a thank you card I sent to someone which then got returned because my address book is out of date. So if I neglected to send you a card for something at some point, don't be offended. I was mostly just avoiding disappointing you with my lack of both money and clever things to say. I'll send you a picture of the kids when Christmas comes around.