Birthday presents!

This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on May 21, 2002). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

I’ve got some very silly parents.

I’m sure that this is just an entirely mindblowing revelation, for anyone who knows me well, or has met them.

I got my first box of birthday presents from them a couple days ago. Two items, both of which made me laugh a lot. The first was a black t-shirt bearing the text, “I’m only wearing black until they make something darker.” They know me so well….

The second I’m almost positive was primarily, if not entirely, my mom’s idea. See, my mom has a fascination (and an unhealthy one, at that, in my slightly smart-alecky opinion) with silly little noisemakers — for instance, some of our family trip back in December of 2000 was devoted to searching for things like the “Big Mouth Bass” or whatever that singing fish was that was so popular a while ago. Now, these little gadgets happen to annoy me to pieces, so I teased mom mercilessly about this during the trip.

So what do I get for my birthday? I got a “My Pet Ferret (With realistic Movement and Ferret Chatter) — Touch and Sound Activated!” I laughed pretty hard when I saw that…both because of the teasing I’d given mom over toys of this sort, and because for a time before I moved to Seattle, I used to have two ferrets of my own. So now, every so often, when I make enough noise, I’m greeted with some happy little ferret chatter coming out of the corner of my room where he sits.

As I said — I’ve got very silly parents.