The Oldest Members of the Group

Tonight my friends and I went out to dinner at Ruby Tuesdays to celebrate my birthday and the birthday of one of my friends - we are birthday buddies, born 3 days and 1 year apart.  We are affectionately referred to as the "oldest members of the group", because we are.

We had great food and a very attentive waiter who kept our water glasses full, looked the other way when we went back for seconds at the salad bar, accepted all the coupons that we brought, split our check 6 ways, and even brought us 6 complimentary cupcakes at the end of our meal in honor of our special occasion.  That Ryan is a good guy!  The BYU football game and the Republican National Convention speeches were showing on the 2 TVs conveniently located by our table and we felt right at home.

Whenever we go out for a birthday celebration, it seems like we are trying to discretely exchange money and sign cards under the table so the birthday girl is "surprised" when a card appears in front of her sometime during the meal.  Some attempts are more successful than others.  I was in charge of purchasing the card and collecting the money for my birthday buddy this year.  I ended up purchasing a card that I thought was entertaining, but it was one that unfolded to become the size of a poster board.  Needless to say, it was difficult to sign it inconspicuously, but it was fun to try.

One friend ended up coming in late and a little frazzled.  Somewhere between the ATM and the restaurant, she had lost the 2 twenties that were supposed to be included in the cards.  She had been searching for them, with no success. The conversation turned to who had given money to who and who owed who money and so on and so forth.  All the sudden my birthday buddy says to me, "Did I give you money?"  I say, "Yes, I collected money from everyone except #6 (the late friend with the missing money)."  BB says, "Oh yeah, I remember walking it down to your house (we are next door neighbors as well as birthday buddies)."  In the meantime I am thinking, "Wait, I don't remember getting money from her.  Did she bring me money?"  I envision the chest in my entry way and the money from  friend 1 and the money from friend 2, but no money from BB.  Friend 3 gave me money tonight and we aren't sure where friend 6 put her money, but what did I do with BB's money?  I say "I don't know what I did with your money. Look in your card and see how much is there."   That's when I realized, she wasn't supposed to give me money for her gift.  We were giving her money!

But wait, she remembers bringing me money.  Finally we figured out that that was 2 months ago for friend 2's birthday.

There for a minute we thought we were having some "old age" memory loss.

As for #6, she is the youngest member of the group and has no excuse for forgetting where she put her money.

P.S. I took my camera to the party, but I forgot to take any pictures.

Today I am thankful that

I have good friends to celebrate with.
I can laugh at myself when I do kind of dumb things.
#6 chose to only get $40.00 out of the ATM and not the $80.00 that she was going to get.