I am now 22 years old--huzzah! This was the best birthday in years. I had a birthday party when I was 12 that was fun, but otherwise, they've been stinkers. Lemme tell you...

My parents hit hard financial times when I was a teenager, so there was more than one birthday when I received *no* presents. I thought they were kidding when they told me there were no presents, but they never were. So that stunk.

When I was 16, my parents both had decent jobs, so it looked more promising. My mother decided that since 16 is a milestone year, I should have a party. Better yet, a *surprise* party. She had no clue whom my friends were, so she tracked down a girl I had gone to an REM concert with. She cornered the girl, whose name was Lorena, and gave her a stack of invitations with instructions to give them out to all my friends.

Now what my mother didn't know was that I had *no* friends. I became intensely introverted when I was twelve, and never spoke to anyone. I wasn't disliked, but I ignored everyone around me, and they ignored me. There was a fluke occasion, which is when I talked to Lorena and asked her if she wanted to see a concert with me. But otherwise, forget about it.

Lorena had no idea what to do with the invitations, so she started to give them to anyone who had a vague idea of who I was. If a person had a locker near mine, they got an invitation, along with a sheepish explanation, most likely.

The day of the party came, and my dad took me out for a driving lesson while the party was set up. My mom went nuts--tons of decorations and food. The time of arrival came, but none of the guests did. Not even Lorena. My poor mother finally realized that no one was coming, so she frantically called all my relatives and told them everything that had happened. So, my father brought me home to a house full of relatives, and it was not a bad day. They probably all thought I was a freak, though--everyone in my family is very outgoing and has hundreds of friends.

The following Monday, I was sitting in Chemistry class, reading The Hobbit or whatever. A group of girls sitting near me turned to me and said "Hey Jess--sorry we couldn't come to your party on Saturday." I said "What? I didn't have a party on Saturday," and returned to my book. But they gave me weird looks that I couldn't interpret.

A week later, my mother confessed what had happened. I guess she was worried about my lack of a social life. She was queen of her senior prom and was on all the girls' athletic teams in high school, so she could not understand that I was so anti-social. I just about died, I was so embarrassed--no wonder those girls looked at me funny, they had guessed what happened (I discovered later)! And my whole family now knew how dorky I was! Gah.

Now I think the whole thing was funny. I got over my fear of people (for the most part) the next year, and went on to have a lot of friends after graduation. So it all ended well, and I have an anecdote.

Anyway, for this birthday, I spent a wonderful weekend in Boulder, plus I got to meet Dave. No humiliation, no letdowns, no injuries (or whatever). Hopefully they'll only get better.

--Jez"and one to grow on!!*ouch*"zika