Best Buddy and Baby Brother's Birthday Bonanza by my Blog! Beautiful.

Today is my brother's birthday. He's 30. When I was growing up, I felt familial pressure to remember my immediate family's birthdays, so don't think I'm any less manly because I remember this shit. Actually, for most of them, it was pretty easy. My dad is June 28 and my mom is June 30. This worked out rather well when I met my wife, because her birthday is June 29, and then we even more conveniently produced a daughter on the same date, June 29. The boy's birthday is July 8.

My brother's birthday is August 17, and my sister's was August 24. They're a week apart, so that was easy to remember, too. Mine is December 22. From those dates, I pretty much remember any other important birthdays. My friend's birthday, the Brewing Optometrist, is five months and a day after mine, May 23. My cousin, the Saxman (different from my cousins Kip and Napoleon), is January 4th, which I remember because it's close to the same time as mine. My brother-in-law's birthday is sometime around my sons and my wife's sister's birthday is sometime around my brother's. After that, things gets hazy. I think Napoleon's birthday is sometime in October, and Kip is in November...maybe. My father-in-law's birthday is at the end of September. My mother-in-law's is sometime around the beginning of the year. January 2, maybe? I don't know. I'm usually drunk.

Anyway, I tell you all of this because today is also my BFF's birthday. The only reason that I remember it's Joe's birthday is because it's the same day as my brother's. I think this is somewhat fitting, because my brother and Joe have a few things in common: they both like to work outdoors, they both can tinker with and fix cars, and they both are possibly the only other men in the entirety of creation that can "accidentally" touch my hand while in the bathroom.

Along those same lines, they're both the only people who can get drunk and leave comments proclaiming their love to me, and I just shake my head, smile, and assume that they've been hitting the box wine.

What is there that I can tell you about Joe that won't make him come and punch me in the throat later in the morning when he reads this? I met Joe before I actually started working with him. He interviewed at my old place of employment, and fortunately for him, he didn't get hired there. It was nothing personal; he just didn't have big tits nor was he Asian, which seemed to be the only way one could get hired there. Plus, he was competent in his work, which was a knock against him.

When I started working at my current place of employ--and discovered Joe was working here--I was nervous that he would be pissed that he didn't get hired by that old place. In a bit of turnabout-being-fairplay, Joe interviewed me. Apparently, I fooled him enough to think that I was a competent member of society and I got hired on. Plus, I think the spider monkey that interviewed for the same position took a job with the circus.

Joe and I started working together on a project a few years ago, and I spent a lot of time talking with him about titties chemistry-related topics: mechanisms, electronegativities, heat of enthalpy, that kind of stuff. Our friendship was thus forged around stories involving T&A pertinent work topics. It was exciting, too, for a while when he and I sat in the same office together and worked in side-by-side hoods. Now we work in separate labs on the same project, but still make it a point to waste time get together and swap stories about hot women we saw ideas.

A nicer guy you'll not find anywhere, which makes me wonder why he hangs out with me so much. He is one of the few people I work with that I'd willingly hang out with on the weekends, but seeing as how he has himself one of those family deals, I don't so much. This probably makes his wife heave a sigh of relief and keeps her from spiraling down a dark path of alcoholism and denial.

To that end, I present you with this comic that I find eerily reminiscent of my friendship with Joe. It's called Least I Could Do, and if you're not reading it, you really should be. That is, if you like jokes about sex and some of the finer pop culture references birthed by growing up in the 80s, you should be reading this. You can click on the comic to make it bigger and more readable.

The truly funny part of this little nugget is that Joe's wife is also named Kate.

So, a heartfelt Happy Birthday goes out to my Stupid Best Friend Flanders, Joe. Happy...however old you are. 35? 73? 12? I dunno. It would be unmanly to have such information.

Also, I should probably wish a Happy Birthday to my brother, Dan, but he doesn't read my blog, so he can find a rope to go piss up. But, happily, though, because it's his birthday.