On this blessed day in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-eight the heavens rolled back, the angels sang, and an American baby boy was born in a German hospital far from home. The bundle of joy was, of course, yours truly. Happy Birthday to Me!!!
Today marks the beginning of year 37. Three short years until I reach the fabulous forties! What to say about this most wonderful of days? “I was born at a young age…”
Actually I know for a fact that at least one person has been waiting for this day since that fateful day when I posted about Nipplegate…he is sure that my mother has embarrassment planned for retribution. In order to start the salvo I’ll tell a little story of my own.
My parents current home, the one I lived in from the third grade until I went off to college, is a split level home. In the center is a stair case that goes up from the basement to a landing where the front door is. The stairs then continue on up to the upper floor. We had a full glass door in addition to the front door which we frequently left wide open in the warmer months. The shower was downstairs and my brother and I had a habit of just running towel clad…or sometimes naked…up the stairs to our room to change after the shower. Why it never occured to me as a young man to take my clean clothes down there with me is a mystery for greater minds than my own.
I would guess I was around 12 or 13 when this specific event occurred. I had showered and was skipping up the stairs in front of the open door when I noticed a neighborhood kid, Mike, coming up the outside stairs. He hadn’t seen me and in blind panic I ran back down the stairs and proceeded to round the corner to hide my nakedness back in the bathroom. As I ran I looked back to make sure he had not reached the front door and discovered my nakedness (which in itself is funny because we went skinny dipping as kids out in the local creek). I was running to what I thought was the opening of the bathroom door and at the last second I turned my head from looking at the front door only to run full speed, head-on into the wall next to the door opening. Cartoon-style my naked form struck the wall and immediately crashed to the floor. I lay there, stunned in my nakedness, listening to the front door bell ring. Months, days, or perhaps just seconds passed as I crawled into the bathroom. When my brain quit sloshing I stood up only to see a ginormous goose egg right in the middle of my forehead. It was huge! I looked as if I had a small alien growing out of my forehead.
God, in his infinite wisdom, did not see fit to answer my prayers and immediately remove the offending blemish and so I had the sheer pleasure of relaying this story to all who I came in contact with over the ensuing days. There’s a moral about nakedness, running, and knowing how to judge where you are in your surroundings when not looking in this story somewhere but I think my brain is still bruised from that incident.
So there you go. I’ve told the nipple story, the farting in college health class story, and now the Chariots of Nakedness story. Feel free to add your own!
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I share my special day with one of my favorite quarterbacks of all time, Troy Aikman, with Belgian artist Rene Magritte, with French author and philosopher Voltaire, and of course with my favorite classic horror femme fatate Ingrid Pitt.
Thank you Ingrid, same to you.
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I am thrilled to be alive and happy to be celebrating another year of existence. I am grateful for friendships old and new and am glad to share my day with you.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROTHER. have a good one today. i will call you later tonight. love ya
Happy birthday Carl! Now that I see you already have a princess crown I must return the one I bought for you this year and find you another gift by tomorrow. Man you’re hard to buy for! 🙂
Actually Tori gave this one away to a friend so get yours wrapped up…I look forward to wearing it to Saw II tomorrow night! 🙂
Happy birthday Carl. Hope it is a good one.
Nice hat!
yay! i’m thrilled you’re alive too – even if this is a bit creepy… who knew 🙂 – not only is my b-day two days before your’s but you are exactly (nearly to the day) ten years older than me :0, but don’t worry, your geeky tastes more than makes up for the age difference.
Happy B-day, old man! I hope it’s the bestest ever!
p.s. you look so happy in the princess crown! it really suits you 🙂
Happy birfday! You look great BTW!
PS love the tiara, I’ve got two myself.
My “recently bitten, nearly dead, poet geek” costume was mostly gone by this point of the Friday evening Tarts Halloween party so I graduated to the tiara. The girls seemed to be quite surprised that I wore it for so many hours…I don’t know why, don’t we all want to be princesses????
Thanks for making me feel so young Mysfit! And happy 2 day belated birthday to you!!! We Scorpio’s are in good company!
Happy Birthday! Is that YOU! In a TIARA? AHAHAHA! That is so SO funny! It’s so nice to see the face behind the words 🙂
As for the story? LOL, dude, a TOWEL would’ve done the trick!
Being naked in front of my parents is horrifying to me, even tho, yeah I know they saw me naked MANY times, but I was a baby, then a toddler. At 12? EEK!
Carl, those pictures are hilarious!! James talked me out of buying you a tiara. You can thank him. Hey, Karen loved hers!! Happy Birthday!!! You and your family are a great blessing to us!!!!!
James wrote a post in honor of Carl at my site, too.
Joyeux anniversaire !
Make the most of those three years, eh?! 😉
Happy Birthday, Sweetie. I am so happy to have you in my life. I had a great weekend with you and our family and friends. Now we are the same age (for a few months atleast).
You look so self assured in your TIARA! It’s kinda sexy.
Happy 37th!
I will…though at the moment I don’t think 40 is going to be a big deal to me. I imagine I’ll be just as big a kid then as I am now!
Thank you Jules, I much prefer the LOTR pens to a tiara!!!
Sexy eh dear? Maybe you should go ahead and let James get me that tiara Jules…woo, woo!!!
happy birthday mr. v!
you look lovely in that tiara.
Happy Birthday!! You are an awesome brother, and I love you very much – even though you always kick everyone’s butt playing Trivial Pursuit and Scene It! I thought I was going to have to fumigate the house after you left yesterday. Cripes! Hey, you can add FUMIGATE to the list with NIPPLEGATE (ha ha)!! Anyway…….thanks for the fun day yesterday, but I must apologize for my promiscuous puppy. He just can’t contain his love for his cousin – maybe we are living too far south!! Hope you have a great 37th birthday with many, many, many more.
Thanks for the great lunch and the games yesterday Abby (and Mike). And hey, you made hot wings yesterday. I believe the greater part of the fumigation issues were caused by your dog and your husband!!!! Between Motley’s gas and his man-love for Razz he was quite the bundle of entertainment yesterday.
Thanks Jenn See. Guess I need to add a replacement tiara to my Christmas list!!!
Happy Birthday, Carl. I hope you have a great day today and enjoy the movie tomorrow.
Thanks Keri…as long as Jeff and James aren’t trying to cuddle with me during the scary parts I think I’ll enjoy it just fine!
Happy Birthday!!!!
Happy Birthday.Carl Man! PLEASE- the tiara is scaring me!!
That basement wall is quite famous-I do believe you got in a peck of trouble having a tomato fight with your brother when one of you came running in the basement with the juicy tomatoes following. What a mess!!
You were always a pretty good kid and had a great imagination, gee, I guess you are still that way! You had to write a story of your life in second or third grade and wrote about our wonderful trip to Disneyland-I don’t remember ever going there on a trip! How we laughed about that, the teacher thought it was a great “story”.
One of the bad boy things you did was to come home from a CHRISTIAN school over Christmas break and go out with friends,coming home a little sick and vomiting in my brand new recliner !!! As I recall you couldn’t even make it to Christmas dinner, the brown bottle flu got the best of you[don’t read this Tori]
I can’t think of anything as bad as Nipplegate,I still can’t believe that !!!! I forgive you tho’.
Dad and I love you very much and are very proud of you – have a fun and exciting birthday! 37,huh? I’m so glad I decided to have you at the ripe old age of nine! [Editor: 9??? Sure, mom!]
Oh my gosh…talk about laughing out loud…that is a great story. Happy Birthday!
(And Carl wore that tiara almost the entire evening of the Tarts dinner. I guess he was trying to fit in.)
Happy Birthday, Carl. Love the pics. I think purple is your color. It makes your eyes dance.
I hope your day is filled with much laughter and blessing. Your family is so much fun and we have really enjoyed you all!
Happy Birthday! The tiara is fabulous. May your day be just as sparkly and purple.
Happy Birthday, Carl! We share the same birth year! I do love the birthday hat – very festive.
Wonderful stories mother…don’t remember writing that story at all! I do remember being extremely drunk that first Christmas home from college. I sat on the floor with my head against the beige recliner, woke up about 2 in the morning and stumbled to bed. I remember the horror of waking up in the morning to someone yelling about me throwing up on the recliner. Of course that day was also the big family Christmas get together which I missed because I was hung over! I remember mom being VERY mad…I had to physically sit her down on her bed and make her talk to me later that night. Don’t know how I ever made it home driving that night…that’s the only time I was ever truly drunk…I vaguely remember several stops along the side of the road on the way home. Cherry vodka and Squirt…quite the drink combination!!!
Dancing eyes? Probably just a look of mischief! If I had known the reception I would get I would’ve started wearing a tiara long ago!!!
Happy Birthday, CARL!
Now aren’t you glad I got those photos of you in the tiara???
And the 40s aren’t so bad. I’m 5 years ahead of you and still smiling!
So I guess the crown makes you famous, PLEASE don’t wear it again (at least not in public).
I guess a picture really is worth a thousand words (or laughs). I love you so much; hope you had the best birthday ever.
LOVE YOU LOTS,
your daughter Tori
P.S.Thanks for the doughnuts
Wow, Carl. I’m new to this site and all, but wow. This place is so much fun, especially on a birthday like today.
And then, I clicked on the Nipplegate link… oh… my… gosh! I laughed like I have not laughed at a blog before, especially at all the comments that were made. “Wow” is all I have to say.
Bless you Sarah…I’m not sure Naked Tiara Boy and Nipplegate were the best introductions to this site…but then again they probably say alot about me as a person! 🙂 Glad I gave you a good laugh as that was of course the intention.
Yes Laura, I’m glad you took the pics. When you sent them I decided right away to save them for my birthday and that’s why I hadn’t posted them before.
Thanks for the nice words Tori dear, it has indeed been ‘the best birthday ever’.
Happy birthday!
I trust all who have blessed your life will remind you how much you have blessed theirs.
Buckle up for another awesome year!
Ohhh… Nipplegate. What a hoot! Carl’s mom has my sympathies!
“I looked as if I had a small alien growing out of my forehead.”
… and this is when your sci-fi love grew deeper, yes? LOL
Happy Birthday, Carl. I’m a day late but sending you the very best wishes on another great year. Purple is definitely your color – nice to see you!
(and ok, don’t laugh, but you *sort of* remind me of Elvis Costello’s mugshot on the cover of his King of America album – with a less fancy crown, of course. But really, seriously, that was my first thought!)
Happy 37th. 🙂
Holy smokes Happy Birthday seems to be the phrase of the blog. I didn’t realize with the tiara how young you really look. It’s hard to believe you’re 2 whole years older than me. It doesn’t make a huge difference at this age but I would have been the one to bum a ride with you when I was 14 and you were 16.
I’m that much older than you also Tommy boy??? Geez! Thank goodness I married an older woman so that at least I’m younger than someone!!! Its probably good you didn’t know me when you were 14 Tom, I would’ve no doubt gotten you into loads of trouble!!!
Nah, I think those two stories are appropriate introductions to you, Carl. 😛 The nakedness count in this priceless story was 5! Do I sense a theme here?
Oh and speaking of nipples, I think Ingrid’s keyhole is showing. :-O
Yipppeeeeee!!! I get to be comment number 37!!!! Woohooo!!
Do I get a prize!!!!!
Yes Jules…for being the post number equal to the number of years I’ve walked this earth you get the marvelous prize of me sending your husband back to you from a night out with the boys. We promise we didn’t love him up and he only cried twice during Saw II. He’s yours to keep!
happy birthday, Carl.. even tho it’s belated..
i do have an excuse.. i couldn’t get on yours or Rob’s site for the past 2 days! how annoying!
but i do hope you had a wonderful birthday! enjoy the short work week.. and did you all see Harry Potter yet?!
Thanks Angela…sorry you’ve had trouble with the sites. Jeff’s wife Keri and also Pat and Janet from this site saw HP but I’m not sure if anyone else has.
Angela my wife saw HP and loved it. She thought it was the best movie yet in the series. My daughter and her have read all the novels and are big HP fans.