It is just like any other day. You wake up with your hair all messed up, lying diagonally across your bed, and there is a good chance you’re hung over. You realize you don’t have work today and feel like your classes were cancelled for some reason. You crawl over to your computer and sign onto Facebook. While that is loading, you check your phone to see if you missed any calls. This is where things change. You have three voicemails, four text messages, and ten wall posts. You feel more loved than you have in months and it’s not even noon. Why the sudden raises in popularity? Oh yeah.

Happy Birthday.

Your birthday is always odd. It may be super good, it may be something awful, but it will always be dissimilar to most days.

There are things that will probably always happen on your birthday. With the world college students live in, there is an influx of electronic communication messages one receives. Family members and good friends who know it is your birthday will be calling and texting all day to wish you well. You get calls from unknown numbers all day, numbers which belong to aunts and uncles who you are too afraid to put into your phonebook in case one of their names is just too close to that of one of your exes who you may or may not have a tendency to angrily drunk dial.

Luckily, thanks to the internets, pretty much anyone you have even pretended to have met can know your birthday. You know how it goes. You glance to the right of your newsfeed and am reminded it is your best friend’s/good friend’s/neighbor’s/cousin’s/girl you kinda met at a party’s birthday. So you wish them a good one. It takes little effort from you, but could help brighten their special day, and maybe they’ll do the same for you. So, they do, and now it is your birthday and you have a hodgepodge of people wishing you well. They’re is the good friends who don’t feel like calling, the classmates who you won’t see that day, and the coworkers who are covering for you.

These aren’t the only people who write on your wall, however. Remember that one kid you talked to a few times in high school? He said happy birthday. The girl in your freshmen English class? She said howdy. Your best friend from elementary school? He wishes you a good one. Your birthday is a license for anyone you have ever met to say something to you. Not even something necessarily nice. People have a tendency to just at an insult after saying happy birthday. What the hell? You hope I have a good day, but I’m also a rat bastard? Why is this allowed? Oh who cares; it is your birthday, and when it is their day, you can call them a jerkbutt and it will all be kosher.

These messages of congratulation for living another year (this in itself is an odd concept. Shouldn’t your parents get a high five for consummating 20-something years ago? All you did was not get hit by a cab or not choke on your own vomit within the past year. Whatever, that’s another argument for another issue) are just the beginning of your hopefully fun day. Your presence on your birthday almost guarantees your presents on your birthday. Now, you aren’t in middle school anymore. You don’t have all your friends, party hats, and a table filled with gifts and cake like you used to (but that would be super awesome), but you probably are going to get something. Whether it be a few checks in the mail from family members who just found out your address, or simply having your roommate throw a pastry at you while exclaiming, “happy birthday Muffin, here’s a happy birthday muffin”. You’ll probably receive at least one solid gift on your birthday. If you don’t, your friends are total jerks and or don’t have Facebook (which we all know is not true).

Probably the best thing about it being your birthday is the ability to point that out at any point in time and being waived of any wrongdoings you have made in that 24 hour period or winning any argument or disagreement. Friends don’t feel like seeing “Beverly Hills Chihuahua”? Too bad, it’s your birthday, and you are, for some god awful reason, seeing “Beverly Hills Chihuahua.”

This is how weird your birthday can be. You get random gifts, well wishing from people you barely know and infallibility for an entire day. Tomorrow, however, is not your day and it won’t be for another 364 days.

Also, you did have class today. You just skipped and totally missed a midterm. It’s cool though, it was your birthday. I’m sure your Professor will understand.