My Forgotten Birthday

I never thought this birthday could be bad except in the event of not receiving a referral before September 1st.  However, I can tell you that yesterday's birthday was the worst and it had nothing to do with the shutdown. 

I woke up Saturday morning and checked my e-mail (duh, don't the rest of you?) and I started seeing a bunch of e-mails in Italian from PayPal.  I just assumed they were phishing for information and I deleted them.  In total, I had 8 e-mails and only the first and last were in English.  It wasn't until I looked at the final e-mail that I read what it said and the basic message was that I had just purchased a Saab (yes, the car) with 850 GBP (Great Britain Pounds).  Yep, you read correctly, a car.  So, I logged into the PayPal account that I thought I had deleted years ago (because it was a piece of $hit even then) and learned that the e-mails were legit.  Someone had transferred 1200 GBP to my account and used 850 GBP for a second-hand Saab.  I immediately called the credit card that I had listed and was told there had been no charges (that card had expired 6 months ago and I had changed numbers at the time--thank God, or they could have cleaned me out).  I sent off a bunch of e-mails to PayPal asking for resolution and then started reviewing my credit reports for any abnormalities.  So far, so good. 

My mom and I went ahead with our plans, but because I hadn't eaten in 15 hours and I was already quite stressed over the whole PalPal security breach and potential stolen identity issue I think my blood sugar must have dropped because I was less than pleasant at that point.  It gets better--then, my sister and her family couldn't find their way to the festival and I begin to lose my mind telling my brother-in-law, "south, you need to walk south".  I shouldn't have been a jerk because I have serious direction issues, but I thought I was doing pretty good because I told him "if you're left hand is touching the brick building that houses XXXXXX business, then you are going south".  Or, "you need to head towards the court house.  Now you are going south."  Unfortunately my patience is at an end from teaching the computer users at the hospital for the last three weeks.  An example of one conversation:

me: you need to click on the big red button on the computer screen that says CANCEL.  Did you do that?

her: I don't know.

me: How do you not know?  It's a yes or no question.  Either you clicked on it or you didn't. 

her: I don't know.

me: If you clicked on the big red button that says CANCEL you won't see that button any more.  Do you see that button now?

her: I don't know.  How do I know?

ARRRGHH.  This same person and I had many more conversations about the elusive big, red CANCEL button.  I finally got to tired of it (if I ever start talking to you very slowly and very softly, please know it is because I am struggling with my every breath to not come through the phone and beat you senseless with it) so I went up to where she was (which involved lots of stairs and elevators since the layout is funky so that really put me in lovely form).  Imagine my surprise when I arrived and that big, red CANCEL button was glaring me in the face!  I clicked cancel moved to the next screen and this person had the nerve to ask, how did you get it to go there?  I clicked the big, red CANCEL button you moron!  Actually, I was very nice.  I explained and demonstrated that when you click the big red CANCEL button it allows you to navigate to a new screen. 

Anyway, my sister's family finally arrived and then my phone rang.  I won't go in to detail about what was said, but I will say the person on the other end of the phone was supposed to meet all of us for my birthday to shop the fair and eat.  This person, of all people, should have been there to celebrate my birthday and decided not to.  Not only that, this person later said, "I always confuse your birthday with your sister's".  This person is a liar.  This person has always remembered my birthday and has always been the first one to send me an e-mail or leave me a voice mail to say "Happy Birthday".  This person has never forgotten a single birthday of mine prior.  I hope this person is reading this right now and knows how hurt I am. 

So, I'm stung by that awful phone call, my blood sugar is dropping (I'm not diabetic, but I get hypoglycemic sometimes when I don't eat and/or I am stressed), I'm dehydrated, and I'm already burned from walking around for an hour and a half and then after entering two different restaurants my sister decides that neither one is good enough.  At this point I'm just wondering how much longer I'm going to last before I drop because she is being so persnickity.  However, it would have improved things if she had mentioned she had a baggy full of Teddy Grahams in her monster purse, but she did not mention that for several more hours.   I finally decide to leave them in my dust and haul ass into a favorite little family owned pizza restaurant.  They catch up, I have some non-diet soda and things start to look better, except now I have to try to explain to my sister why the other part of our party will not be showing up today.  There really weren't any good words for why that person wasn't going to be there.  It was just very disappointing all the way around.  Between this person (whom I should probably refer to TP, except that sounds too much like toilet paper, which is easily confused with ass wipe and I don't want to start calling this person names), the unexplained charges to my PayPal account, the potential identity theft issue, and the overall unease I was feeling--it was just a very difficult day.  Last night I looked at my watch and noticed I only had two more hours left in my birthday and I thought "Thank God!"  I was ready for that day to be over.

Today was a glorious new day and it was nice to go out with my friend, Michael. Not only that, I got phone calls and e-mails from a number of other friends and blogger buddies checking in on me.  I don't need to name you all, but please know that I am grateful for your friendships and for the opportunity to get to know you.  My hope is that my next birthday is vastly different than this one.

Happy Labor Day!