Yearly Reprint of My Birthday Post

1981 (I probably should have changed this to 1986 to improve my marriage prospects)- Born under Aquarius in Preston, Idaho-proud home of Napoleon Dynamite. I had a cone head (I’m the oldest) and my parents were terrified that I was deformed. My doctor was later convicted of arson.

1985- My mom blew up balloons and wrote the letters for “Happy Birthday Jill” on each one. Because it was my birthday, I was allowed to watch whatever show that I wanted and I chose a prohibited one-Transformers.

Sometime in the 80s-My mom gave me a picture of my crush, Fred Savage.

1989-While picking out a new dress, I threw up spaghetti in Kohls.

1993- I sat at home alone, watching Dances With Wolves, tears streaming down my face. I can’t remember the details, but I know that it involved my mom instructing ladies to decorate Keds with puff paint instead of staying home with me.

1994- My Aunt Penny sent me TeenBeat magazines to mark the milestone. Those were the early days of Leo, Zach Morris and Macualy(too lazy to look up spelling) Culkin. I started subscribing to “Teen” and one month I realized from the Table of Contents that my mom had torn out an article along the lines of “Everything You Need To Know About Sex.” It was a valiant effort, but at the first opportunity, I ran to the library and read it.

1998- My friends called me one by one, bailing on my birthday. As I sobbed uncontrollably, my friend Sylvia called and convinced me to go to a restaurant with her. When we arrived, my friends were there. I was happy, yet ashamed that I had cried off all of my makeup.

1999- I passed out while donating blood and concluded that I was being punished for doing it to get out of class. My crush that year was too skinny to donate blood.

2002, Santiago, Dominican Republic-I was enrolled in a class that was half American (I know, not p.c., but I’m not saying United Statesian), half Dominican. Mid-lecture, another student raised his hand and said, “Jill y yo somos novios (basically “Jill and I are dating”).” This was not true. The Cuban teacher had an expression of panicked confusion on his face and the Dominicans in the class started chanting “Beso! Beso!”
In a rare recognition of my existence, my host family gave me a jewelry set.

2003, Provo, Utah-My friend Drea and I went to a BYU devotional (speech), where the speaker talked about how each year that you get older, the quality of your marriage options rapidly decreases. Later that night, my cousin, Brandon, gave me clam juice as a gift and my friend chugged the entire thing.

2006, San Pedro Sula, Honduras-The toilet in my bathroom broke, so my parents paid for my friends and me to stay in a hotel- it was a good way to forget where we were for a second. My class ordered pizzas in honor of my birthday, and ended up chucking the empty pizza boxes into the fan.

2007, San Pedro Sula, Honduras- For inexplicable reasons, I was very depressed about turning 26. But my fate was better than Anna Nicole Smith’s, who died that week. A few days before my birthday we did the hotel party again, and ended up watching several hours of the paternity drama on CNN.

On my actual birthday, my Honduran friend Thania made Mexican food (trust me, it is hard to get decent Mexican food there-people always put sick cheese all over everything) and somehow found root beer to honor my cultural heritage. The ladies from church were learning how to make jewelry at the time, so I got some pretty sweet gifts. This birthday receives an A+.

2009, New York, New York- I worked for a heinous devil, so I did not mention the blessed event. I do remember that my boss left work at 1:00 p.m., which was all the present that I needed. Luckily, someone who shared the office suite with us had a birthday, so I got some cake.

2010: I had a bad attitude about my birthday, but suddenly changed and told my friend Emily that I wanted to have a party at the last minute. She was a good sport about it and pulled together a dinner for 20+ people in like twenty-four hours.

2011: Everyone felt sorry for me because I turned thirty and bought me presents. I seriously received more than $200 in assorted gift cards alone. The Turkish school birthday cake had my name spelled incorrectly and as I was taking a pic of it, the secretary foiled me by slicing the spelling error with a knife.

2012:

Photo credit: Stef. For some reason we thought that the Rice Krispies box in the background made it more believable.