Why I Hate Birthday Parties

From 2009: I had only one damn birthday party when I was a kid...and my siblings mortified me during the "pin the tail on the donkey" portion of the festivities. I spent most of the party hiding under my grandmother's bed. If I only had this book back then...

I also hate the song Happy Birthday to You and refuse to sing it.

How many of these copyright protected characters can YOU name?

I had another birthday party when I was a teen for my 16th or 17th...

My parents actually allowed us to have beer! (But it was lite beer if I recall correctly).

Look at all these other great party books...

As an adult, I actually enjoy throwing parties-but never birthday parties. I like cocktail parties. My parents had a liquor cabinet that had the same bottles of booze in it for my entire childhood. They never once threw a cocktail party. They never had friends come over for drinks.

But they did have an absolutely groovy collection of drink mix guides for some reason. Maybe one day they planned on finally letting loose and enjoying the Nite-Life?
Maybe they wanted to be like the people in those drink recipe books.
Young, sexy, hip with not a care in the world. That would have been nice.
On a similar note, I used to fantasize that my parents were really Burt Bacharach and Angie Dickinson.Burt & Angie would pour each other glasses of Martini & Rossi and lounge around our Malibu home on the shag carpet and cuddle in front of the crackling fireplace on a chilly autumn evening.

Maybe Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme would come over one night to hang around the piano while Burt tickled the ivories. 

Or maybe they'd all go out on dad's boat.  How romantic. Ah - the glamourous life I could have had. Well I think we should all pour ourselves a nice glass of Martini & Rossi and "say yes". Just don't sing Happy Birthday to me.