A Bear For My Bday

Story Time With the Grumpy Nerd Dad: Birthday Edition

Well, it’s official. I’m another year older and wiser…or something like that. Truth be told, the older you get the less distinctive birthdays get. Everyone likes to ask me “so how does it feel to be X years old,” to which I say, “a lot like Y years old.” But it’s still nice to have a day where my children get excited for my sake (or maybe it’s because they know they’re going to get cake) and I get a moment to just have me time. This year, however, didn’t start off great. My wife had JURY DUTY on my birthday! What the actual fire and brimstone heck government? Couldn’t have pushed it back a week or something? How rude! So I resigned to the grim fact that this was going tobe the first birthday of my married life without my wife. I know I know, it’s pretty common throughout married life to have birthdays where your spouse isn’t there at every waking moment, but we’re sentimental and sensitive dagnabbit!

So anyways, we got over it, decided to celebrate it on the weekend as a family like normal adults and moved on. Well, let me tell you how a bear decided to crash the party. That’s right ladies and germs, a bear! And it wasn’t just any old bear either mind you! Let me set the stage:

My birthday weekend

Waaaaaay too late in the night (my bedtime is 9 PM. Kids are exhausting).

My wife and I sleeping soundly in bed after watching an episode or two of True Blood. (I’m only in it for Lafayette! I would watch an entire show just based around that man’s day-to-day and be thoroughly entertained).

Suddenly, there’s a knock on our bedroom door. It’s my sister-in-law, Duchess! You might remember her as the behavioral therapist/super hero sister of my lovely wife. Anyways, she’s pounding on our door in a frenzy. We awake in a startle just as she bursts in. “GUYS! THERE’S A FREAKING BEAR OUTSIDE!” She exclaims with the giddiness of a ten year old boy downloading Fortnite for the first time. Before either of us have a chance to respond, she runs off downstairs telling us to hurry before it leaves. Now…I’m dazed, confused, groggy, and starting to process the terrorizing thought that there’s a wild bear outside of my home…that my sister-in-law just ran to go see.

I panic.

I leap out of bed and throw on a bathrobe as I refuse to combat a bear whilst wearing my skivvies. I try to catch up with Duchess while trying to be as quiet as possible as to not wake the younglings down the hall. I’m trying to tell Duchess to stay inside and that we should probably call animal patrol, but she’s already standing by the open front door.

I’m freaking out. The door is open, there’s a dangerous animal apparently right in my driveway, a member of the family is running out to see it, and I’m just thinking “ah crap, I’m going to have to save my sister-in-law with my bare hands!” So I run out after her ready for battle. I was going to defend the clan, or die trying. Glory or Valhalla! Lo and behold, I come face to face with my adversary, the bear.

Confused? Oh yes, threw a red herring at ya! I am the master of weaving twists and turns in the tales of fate! As you can see, it wasn’t exactly a real life bear that awaited me out on the porch, yet it was a bear nonetheless.

For those of you who don’t know my personal life (so basically all of you), I am not from the state that I live in. Not to give you too much information due to the crippling social anxiety that grips my every breath, let’s just say that where I grew up versus where I live now are both border towns…for totally different countries. So pretty much as far away north and south as I can get. I love it where I live and don’t miss my home town very much, but I do miss the people I grew up with. I miss my mom and dad, my sister and her husband, my nephews, and my friends. I know I could probably make new friends up here, but let me remind any of you who already forgot, CRIPPLING SOCIAL ANXIETY!!! I mean, I of course value my friendship with my wife as she is my best friend and I love Duchess as if she were my actual sister, but a part of me misses guy time and non-family relations.

Well my wife knew how homesick I can get, so she and her family had a master plan. Originally, the plan was to fly me down to see my family for the weekend. Problem being…uh I got children and stuff. My wife sure as heck can’t take time off of work to stay home with our gremlins, and I’d only be able to stay for a couple days which isn’t really a whole lot of time. So instead my wife, her amazing parents, and my awesome sister-in-law all plotted to fly my childhood friend to celebrate my birthday weekend with me (thank you guys, you’re freaking awesome).

We are talking about the best friend I’ve ever had here. Friends since childhood, fellow nerd enthusiast, the kind of friend where we may not talk as much as we should, but when we do it’s like not even a day has passed. We were both large and hairy individuals growing up, so we so lovingly referred to ourselves as “brother bears” (ah, see where this is going?). Distinct differences are that he is Filipino so he donned the alias of “Panda Bear” and I was “Polar Bear”…because I’m…y’know…whiter than ajax (at least I think ajax is white. I sure hope it’s white or else this joke is just dumb). Remember: It’s only racist when it’s not your best friend! That’s like a rule or something I believe.

Anyways, Panda has always been my best friend. We’d go for long walks talking about our favorite books, stay up late playing video games, watch Monty Python on loop, consume an absurd amount of food in front of us, heck, he was even the best man at my wedding. I’ve missed him.

My wife and her family were nice enough to arrange this awesome surprise and somehow keep it a secret for a month. Like, guys, this is my wife I’m talking about. She is HORRIBLE at keeping secrets! She’s like the classmate who you make swear not to tell the rest of the class who you have a crush on in the second grade. She just can’t contain the excitement! Heck, when she found out she was pregnant for the first time, her original plan was to tell me on Christmas. She lasted roughly two hours before telling me.

So I had NO idea when I emerged from the house ready to fight off a wild animal that my best friend would be there waiting for me. He scared the living crap out of me, I went into shock, but then we embraced like old times…me in my bathrobe and all. I had an amazing weekend catching up with my brother bear and so glad my wife made me get rid of the battle ax I used to keep under my side of the bed”in case of emergencies.”

Anyways, thank you to my wonderful wife for an amazing surprise, thank you to Duchess and her parents for organizing this, thank you to my parents and sister for doing everything they can to make me not feel homesick, and thank you Panda for coming to play some Dungeons and Dragons with me and my father-in-law for a weekend (oh yeah, we are all a bunch of hopeless nerds).

I hope you all have a great weekend, and party on for my sake! Celebrate another year of Grumpy Nerd Dadness! We will all be partying together in spirit. I wrote this in the fever of fun and surprises, so apologies for any typos and such. So until next year my grumps, stay classy, stay safe, and, above all else,

Stay grumpy.