My birthday is right after Christmas, so my birthday was usually 'everyone is burnt out, no one wants to do anything, and also we spent so much on you for Christmas that it was actually your Christmas AND birthday presents all at once.' (Granted, I was pretty spoiled, so I'm not complaining about not getting stuff.)
My birthday is almost a full month after Christmas, but I ALWAYS got the "this is your birthday AND Christmas gift" thing. I'm not the greedy type, so I never really cared, but always thought it was just a way for my family to put as little effort into my birthday as possible. I'm the "black sheep" of the family, so it really comes as no surprise.
My birthday weekend often falls on Super Bowl weekend, and as a kid people just assumed I’d want a superbowl party.
Spoilers: it was the LAST fucking thing I wanted. Ugh to the max.
Ugh. I usually spend "Superbowl Sunday" either at the movies, or binge-watching something else. I don't care about ANY of it, and the few times I have watched it has been for the Halftime show...the last good one being when Prince played it. I don't know what it is about Football, but I find it SO boring. People always try to talk to me at work about it, and I just have no way to relate.
I’m old enough that they dressed us up as Pilgrims and [Native Americans] in kindergarten. Obviously they used a different word. And the younger, pre-K (I think they call it TK now) kids were the [Native Americans]. Not great.
Memories of this made me truly love the scene in Addams Family Values. I saw that in the theater and was HOWLING with laughter.
And re: dinner table shenanigans, my mother used to make this HUGE show when guests were over about “sitting at the dinner table LIKE WE ALWAYS DO”. Yeah, that was a fucking lie because when no one was over we almost never sat at the actual table nor had “DDC” (“delightful dinner conversation”, real witty, mom), and when my sister and I got to be teens we started calling my mom out on the lie in front of company and she did. not. like. that.
But ya gotta dig: my family was WEIRD about social stuff and table manners. My dad used to yell at me, in all seriousness and clearly in a state of genuine fear for me that “people will think you are a BARBARIAN!!!!!!!” if I like held my fork the wrong way up or didn’t put my knife down after cutting.
My mom is the one who harps on such things in my family. I was called a "barbarian" more than once for not using the right fork or whatever. That was fine with me, as I figured that meant I was in the company of Conan & He-Man.
Once my mother flipped her fucking lid when I was wearing something white after Labor Day. I generally hate to wear anything white, and literally only put on the shirt because I thought SHE would like it since we were going to church. I had no idea that the Labor Day "rule" was even a thing, and I still think it's one of the dumbest social conventions I've ever heard.
I don't mind the smell of weed, per se. The problem is that, at least around here, you never just smell a little bit of it. It's always like someone took a bath in it. I always wimped out, perhaps smartly, on smoking it because of my asthma. I don't mind a good gummy or infused food now and then, but it's gotta be just the right amount, or it turns into a bad time for me.
I remember weed smelling dramatically different when I was younger. It wasn't really pleasant, but it didn't bother me much. Today's weed smells like a skunk's asshole....just a foul, awful scent I cannot stand. I've heard potheads claim they love the smell, and I always tell them it's because they have destroyed the scent receptors in their noses by smoking that shit too much.
I've never been a big drinker or druggie, and would always indulge on rare occasions. Pot, depending on the strain, can really hit me in wildly different ways. It often makes me feel paranoid, and I don't like that feeling at all. IF I were to partake (highly unlikely), it would probably be some sort of edible thing so I didn't have to smell that awful crap that would make Pepe Le Pew gag, and I'd have to know ahead of time that it was something that would relax me instead of making me worry that government agents weren't going to descend on my home or something!
I'm not a square, I promise! Perhaps just a questionably curvy rhombus. Which, coincidentally, is what the math nerds called me in high school. You ever been so uncool as to be picked on by math nerds?
Maybe you're just a square....root?
It's a badge I'd wear with pride if I didn't despise math so much.