Optimus Prime

I had a birthday this last week. I don’t know why I thought of it, and I’m not sure why I thought it was meaningful, but I realized that I was in the year of a prime number. It’s the twelfth time that’s happened, and I don’t necessarily think that those years have been any better or worse than other years, but I noticed it all the same. Maybe I should take a detour here and discuss why numbers and my brain have such a fascination with one another, but I’ll save that for another day. For now, I was discussing my birthday.

One of the other things I noticed this year was related to birthday greetings. I got four cards in the mail. (Yes, I could count them on one hand.) One of those was from Southwest Airlines, a close personal friend of mine. Another was a standard card from a financial planning company in my hometown. That leaves two cards. One came from my mother-in-law, and the other from my Granny. They are both over 70 years of age. I’m just sayin’.

Now, you might be wondering…how pathetic, that Eric only received two real birthday cards. (Technically, this is not true, since my immediate family and company each hand delivered a card to me, but I’m talking cards in the mail, with postage and everything.) Well, you can call me pathetic for other reasons (maybe the discussion of prime numbers would do it), but I probably received more birthday wishes than ever before this year. As you may have guessed, they came in the form of texts, emails, and Facebook messages. I didn’t count those, but it was several dozens of messages, maybe in excess of 50.

Now, this immediately brought to mind several thoughts. First, no wonder the postal service is hurting for money. If my experience is typical, you factor in holidays and other “card-giving occasions”, and you extrapolate that out to most other Americans, and you’ve got a serious change in revenue for the USPS. Second, I assume card companies like Hallmark cannot be far behind if they have not changed their business plans. Finally, I thought, what’s next? What other forms of communication are on their way out, or on their way in. But it was my birthday, so I didn’t want to work my brain too hard. Besides, there was that whole prime number thinking I was doing.

I also used my birthday to do something really fun with the family. April and I had been planning a trip to California for a while. We wanted to take the boys to Legoland, so we decided to go see Disneyland and the Sand Diego Zoo on the same trip. Even though April and I had discussed this for months and we had even booked the flights and hotels, we had not told the kids anything about it. Well, my birthday seemed to be right time to reveal it all.

So, after the family had showered me with gifts (MasterMind, Bop-It, a Texas Tech cup, socks, and keyless remote for my truck), I took the opportunity to give a gift back. I had a homemade card made out to the whole family that told the kids to start a treasure hunt. It started the game with a short poem that sent Andrew out to look in the mailbox.

What he found, was a homemade puzzle piece, which when assembled with the others pieces would tell the story of our planned vacation. On the back of the piece was another poem telling a clue to find the next puzzle piece. The kids were running off to the piano bench, the gum drawer, Andrew’s sock drawer, the puzzle closet, and the dessert shelf in the pantry. April videoed the entire thing, and the reaction from the boys when they realized we were going to Legoland is priceless.

It was a really fun evening, and one our family will never forget. So, the beginning of this Prime Year, was a good one. Thanks to one and all for my wonderful birthday wishes. I’m a blessed man.

Just Passing Through (for over 37 years now),

Eric