In which Calvin forgets my birthday more than once

I am not a high-maintenance girlfriend or wife. Really, I'm not. I don't need jewelry or expensive dinners out or constant attention. I barely wear jewelry and what I wear isn't that fancy. I prefer to cook over eating out because there just aren't that many restaurant meals that are better than what I can make, plus I hate the whole ritual of Dining. It takes too long. And I definitely do not want attention all the time because I am a bit of a loner, or, at least, an introvert. I do just fine on my own.

But.

I want my birthday acknowledged.

I want a present and a fuss on my birthday.

There. I said it.

Is that wrong? Does that make me a bad person?

Primo does a great job on birthdays. He is always so excited about what is doing for me that he gives me my present early. My birthday isn't for a month, but he already gave me a new digital camera for my purse to replace the heavier, bulkier one I've had for five years. You should keep a camera in your purse because when your car gets hit and it's the other guy's fault but you get the ticket because he's a faster talker than you, you can take photos of the cars and the scene and show them to the court, who will waive your ticket, and to your insurance company, who will say, "There is no way you caused that accident" and will go after the guy for the $2,000 in repairs.

The court will also note that nobody has ever brought her own Matchbox cars to re-create the accident (who knew they had their own cars there already?) and they will admire your suit because of course you dressed nicely for court and not in sweatpants with the word "Juicy" across your ass, although perhaps in certain circumstances, that is the attire that would lead to indulgence and the winning of your case.

Calvin was not a birthday guy.

In his defense, he is a bit of the distracted scientist, thinking about relativity and circuits and Big Issues most of the time, but I wanted to be number one in his head.

I never got there. I wonder how things are with his marriage. He married one of my college roommates - a suitemate from our sophomore year. Brenda is the nicest person in the world, but needs a lot of attention. She is not emotionally self sufficient at all, or was not when I knew her well, which was in college and a couple of years after. He did not give me a lot of attention when we were dating. I hope he is giving her the attention she wants.

On a side note, Brenda is also the only person I know of who has lived the nightmare of, "Omigosh I have a 20 page paper on pig iron due tomorrow." Yep. She hadn't read the syllabus and forgot. She spent all night doing that paper and yes, it was on pig iron. This was before the internet, so it was a lot harder to research back then.

In Calvin's defense, he did get me one of the best presents I have ever gotten. For Christmas our second year of dating, he gave me my own jean jacket. Probably to keep me from borrowing his all the time. I still preferred to wear his because it smelled like him and the Polo cologne he wore, a scent that to this day makes me a bit weak kneed. I am not a big perfume/cologne person, but I make an exception for Polo.

I loved that jacket and wore it until it was threadbare. I had the collar turned and wore it some more. I wore it until it was falling apart. Finally, I got rid of it and have regretted it ever since because I have not been able to find a decent replacement jean jacket.

But my birthday.

He didn't do anything for my birthday the first year we were dating. The fact that my birthday was two days after we Did the Deed did not help matters. It also did not help matters that I took my ire out on my friends rather than on him.

The next year, he also did nothing, even though my friends, two weeks ahead of my birthday, were advising him to mark the occasion somehow. I, too, dropped many, many hints, like, "My birthday is coming!"

Birthday arrived.

Nothing.

I got mad at him this time. I had never had a birthday and a boyfriend at the same time and I wanted something special. Not necessarily an expensive present, but recognition. When I was a kid, we didn't have to do chores on our birthday. My mom made a cake and whatever meal we wanted. For one day, the birthday person was the center of attention. My freshman year of college, my mom made a cake and my entire family drove the 200 miles from San Antonio to Houston to deliver the cake and then drove back there the same night. I wanted the boyfriend equivalent of a 400 mile round trip to deliver a cake.

"But birthdays aren't important in my family," he shrugged.

"I don't care," I told him calmly, or maybe snapped. "They're important in mine and just the fact that it's important to me should be reason enough for it to be important to you." I pointed out that he could have folded a piece of paper in half and written "Happy birthday" on it and that would have mollified me somewhat.

I did not point it out in a even, reasoned voice.

Maybe I was a bit immature.

But maybe I was doing it for his future girlfriends/wife. I'm sure Brenda thanks me now.