The Servant's Quarters

Happy Birthday, Isaac

Yesterday, I took a welcome day off from work to spend the day with my eldest son, who turned 15. Hard to believe that it's just over 15 years ago that Rita and I went into the hospital for an induced labor that lasted about 8 hours, if my memory is on the ball.

And life was never the same after that.

Anyway, I got up around 7:00 AM. Since I wasn't going into the office, I had the opportunity to take my morning exercise with our dog, Walker. (He was absolutely thrilled!) After getting cleaned up and dressed, Isaac and I went for our traditional birthday breakfast at the Wayne Coney Island. (Every kid gets breakfast out with Dad on their special day.) I agonized over the menu and briefly thought about splurging for something really fattening before losing my nerve and falling back on my standard, less than exciting choice - oatmeal, milk, and a bagel. Isaac ordered the breakfast special, and almost had an unpleasant surprise when he asked for "hard-boiled" instead of "hard-yoked" eggs. Fortunately, I knew that hard-boiled eggs weren't his style and I caught the error.

Usually, the afternoon of a Butler child's birthday involves the entire family engaging in a activity of the birthday boy's/girl's choice. Depending on age, this usually means a trip to Chuck E. Cheese, Laser Tag, a local science museum, or some other dream getaway. However, since Isaac had already had his birthday treat (a trip to Cedar Point a couple of weeks previously), we settled down for a lazy afternoon at home.

Around 5:00 PM, we had cake and a rather anti-climatic opening of gifts. As Isaac is at the stage where toys no longer satisfy, I popped for a gift certificate for Buy.Com as a present for him. I had ordered it the previous day and asked that it be delivered to his e-mail Inbox. After cake and ice cream, I told Isaac to check his e-mail for his birthday present. He logged in and found -

Nothing!!!!

Happy birthday, ol' buddy!

I logged in at the Buy.Com web site, and my ordered was "being processed at the warehouse." I wonder just what processing an online gift certificate needs before it gets sent out.

Well, he took it in stride, and a few minutes later, we left for our church's annual Harvest Party at Real Life Farms in Canton. There, we roasted hot dogs around a camp fire, sipped hot chocolate, played with a barn full of animals (I took a real liking a calf named Barney. He reminded me of my dog as he was almost as big as Walker. I even got to feed him a bottle of milk.), went on a hay ride, and rode horses. Afterwards, we picked up our bags of candy, went home, and had a delightfully naughty candy eating session before hitting the sheets. We were so juiced by sugar that even I felt a little buzzed.