Best and Worst Birthday Presents

When I turned 14, I received two presents that had major impacts on my life that year. As the title of this article suggests, they were the best and worst birthday presents I ever received. And to get them both the same year is just less icing on the cake.

The best present was a motorcycle. My parents had let me know way ahead of time I was getting one, so this wasn't a surprise. I had to get a motorcycle driver's license in order to start riding it on my birthday. I went to the DMV and took the written test. I got 100%. Then I took the driving test, which consisted of me driving in a circle in the parking lot. My father watched while the woman from the DMV administered the test. I took a turn and hit a telephone pole with my rear tire. And then, when I came to a stop, I forgot to pull the clutch, so the engine died. The woman from the DMV shook her head and told my Dad I didn't do too good, but since I got a perfect score on the multiple choice test, it was enough to issue me a license.

While I immensely enjoyed the motorcycle because it represented a form of freedom, I did not like that I mostly had to use it exploring dirt and primitive roads around camping areas. When we were on solid paved roads, it was a blast. Off road, it was a nightmare because I can't go very fast on those kinds of roads and I actually fell off several times. It's not a fun experience to believe for a few milliseconds that you're about to be taken to the hospital or even die.

Many years later, Mom wrote in the reunion newsletter for Grandma Bend's family that she felt like I hated that motorcycle. That's right, she actually made me look like an ungrateful spoiled brat to everyone in the family. She just didn't get that I hated risking my neck taking the motorcycle to places I didn't want to go to in the first place.

Now, before you start thinking that motorcycle was also the worst present at the same time, keep reading: My birthday that year was on a Friday. (I'm going to go off on a tangent here to complain about my birthday.) Since my birthday is September 1st, more often than not, it winds up on the Labor Day weekend. Every year for Labor Day, my family went camping. This meant my birthday was usually spent away from home, normally with my parents' friends (the ones from the Radio and Bible Stories Christmas incident). This also meant that I almost never got a normal birthday party that my friends could attend. Loyd got a birthday party almost every year with his friends, but I didn't. And it also didn't make sense that we HAD to go camping for the Labor Day weekend. I mean, we had the whole summer to go camping. Why couldn't we do it before school started? Even worse was that it rained every year in the location where we went camping, so I was completely miserable. Add my attitude problems during my teen years and you have a perfect storm of discontent.

As usual, we left for the campground on Friday after school. This particular year, Grandma Bend and Aunt Cind went with us. My birthday would be more of a celebration, or so I thought until I got my birthday present from them.

I had opened up presents from Mom, Dad, Loyd and my parents' friends. I can't really recall what they gave me, but I'm certain they were things I requested. However, Cind gave me this plain brown bag with something inside and said it was from her and Grandma Bend. I opened it up. It was a disposable razor and shaving cream. I was not pleased. I mumbled, "Thanks," but I know the look of disappointment on my face could not be ignored.

Mom got on my case later and said I should appreciate the gift from Grandma Bend and Cind more because it showed that they thought I was mature enough to shave. At the time, I couldn't really express my feelings properly because there was so much going on in my mind.

This was the biggest problem I had with the gift: On the way up to the campground, we had stopped at a convenience store to get a few supplies and snacks. It looked like Cind and Grandma Bend had just bought the razor and the shaving cream at that store. The thought occurred to me that they forgot it was my birthday and they scrambled at literally the last minute to get me something. That's what Mom didn't get. If they had gotten me one of those nice shaving gift sets, I would have appreciated it. If they had just filled the bag with candy and gum, I would have appreciated it. But the razor and shaving cream off the shelf at the convenience store? There was no thoughtfulness in that gift, so they shouldn't have been expecting any thoughts of appreciation from me to come their way.

As it was, I wouldn't even be able to start shaving for another year. And I never used that razor or shaving cream. But I did use that motorcycle.