Birthday Paybacks

My sister Melinda and Cindy both have birthdays really close together, last time we were visiting back home in South Carolina it just happened to be in July right near both of their birthdays, so needless to say there was an entire week of fun and pranks between these two.

We went up to the store my sister works in, she manages a small local store with regular customers who know her and our entire family it seems, her store has a typical convenience store type rack in front and over the cashiers head where cigarettes that are for sale are stored, leaving a blank wall area overhead from the customers viewpoint, this area sometimes has banners or product advertisements, on this particular day while Melinda’s back was turned Cindy placed a sign she had made that boasted “Happy 45th Birthday Melinda” this was the year Melinda was actually turning 38, it was pretty funny to sit back and watch Melinda’s face as each customer came in, glanced up at the sign and shouted “Happy Birthday Melinda” Melinda looked so pleased and said Thank You, you could just see how happy she was that someone knew it was her birthday, until someone added “How does it feel to be 45”.

The smile turned into a frown immediately, the next customer came in with “Happy 45th Melinda” Melinda smiled and said “Thank You but I am not 45”, the customer replied “That’s not what I heard”, this continued for about an hour, we were about to die laughing until one man pointed to the sign and said “I didn’t know you were 45” this is when Melinda came around to the front of the counter and the sign came down, Melinda said some words that I really didn’t know my little sister could say, there were a couple sailors standing in the corner blushing and they hurriedly left the store without buying anything, I am so proud that they weren’t regulars that knew my Momma because that is the same mouth that my little sister uses to kiss my Momma with, she pointed at Cindy who was laughing hysterically at her and said something that I just couldn’t make out.

A Couple days later we met up with Melinda and her entire family for a Birthday trip up to Carowinds, which is a Theme Park kind of like Six Flags on the border of North and South Carolina, Momma was also along for the trip and the day was filled with a lot of laughs, the first laugh came when we got out of the van at the restaurant we were meeting everyone at for breakfast, and lo and behold Melinda and Cindy were dressed exactly the same all the way down to their hairstyles, if I didn’t know better I would have thought they had planned it, later in the day at the park they went to separate booths you know those “Guess Your Age” , “Guess Your Weight”, “Gimme Your Money” booths, they were at separate places at the same time and came away with the exact same prize, it was kind of spooky sitting there with Robbie (Melinda’s Husband) watching these two girls dressed exactly the same, skipping toward us like the Doublemint Twins with the exact same prize and at the same time shouting “Look What I Won” at the exact same time, this was not the end of the exacts but I will save this for later and get back to the birthday story.

On the way home we stopped at a Denny’s restaurant for supper, our entire group consisted of about fifteen people sitting around one large group of tables that were pushed together for our party, you know after being on the road for a bit everyone was lining up at the restrooms before sitting down so it took a while for everyone to get gathered together, Melinda was talking with the waitress helping her get things organized, the waitress began going around the table taking everyone’s drink orders, this went well until she got to Cindy and leaned over real close, heck it scared me I thought she was going to kiss her as she got right up into Cindy’s face and literally shouted, “Can I get you something to drink Hun?” Cindy ordered Iced Tea and the Waitress shouted “OK I’ll be right back with that”, this lady was really good with everyone but when she talked to Cindy it was at the top of her lungs, she shouted everything and always leaned over looking right into Cindy’s face, the whole table was laughing, Momma was red faced she was laughing so hard and I think I literally saw Melinda rolling on the floor once, Cindy and I thought it strange and wondered between ourselves what may be wrong with our waitress.

At the end of the meal all the waitresses came marching out from the back in unison, with a candle burning atop a cake screaming at the top of their lungs, I kid you not they were not singing they were actually screaming “Happy Birthday To You” as they serenaded Cindy and wished her a Happy 55th Birthday, at this point Melinda was laughing so hard she was gasping for air, I think she just may have peed herself too, Cindy played it off well and was thankful for the attention until Melinda told her that she was the one who told the waitress it was Cindy’s 55th Birthday and that she had to talk loud because Cindy was really hard of hearing

I guess this could have been what helped lead up to the Birthday Cake Fight of 2006, To this day Cindy is still not pushing 55 and I sure hope our next trip home is in July again because it’s going to be a lot of fun being an innocent bystander when the next round of paybacks come.