How NOT to accept a birthday present

Posted by Katy Regan at 19:01 on 4 Apr 2010

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Good God, I am NEVER drinking again. I am sure this hangover is far too severe for a woman of thirty-six. It was my birthday yesterday and I celebrated in style. Egg, Fergus, Matt Black and his son and our friend Kathy all hit the pub at 2pm and didn't roll out till gone 8pm. (I'd like to point out that we did have lunch and that it was a family pub -  we didn't take our kids to some nasty boozer all day where fat, red-nosed men played darts over their heads!)  Still, I'm sure that most people my age go to ASK pizza for a civilised glass of wine, followed by a country walk on their thirty-sixth birthday, not all-day drinking. Ah well. I guess I am not most people (

I'm not very good with birthdays - which is why I think the booze ‘went to my head' more than usual (nothing to do with the sea of vinage blanc I consumed of course.) A birthday is always a bit like New Year's Eve for me, all that pressure to enjoy yourself plus you're the centre of attention which although most of the time I don't object to (no, really I don't)  I don't really do on  birthday. 

It had not got off to the best start, when I met Egg and Fergus in the morning to open my presents. Now, it doesn't matter how I put this, it's going to make me sound terrible but I shall tell you anyway.

 I had specifically told Egg NOT to buy me accessories. Accessories are notoriously hard for men to buy for women and although Egg is great at buying most presents (save for the odd blip in the decade we've known each other in the form of a Woolworths tool-kit...) he normally gets it very right. I've had i-pods, pictures, really thoughtful writerly things like the time he went to photograph the writer David Lodge, then made a card out of the picture and got Mr Lodge to write a personal message to me about how to be a writer.

However, accessories seem to be his 'taste' blind spot, unfortunately, which is why I told him not to go there!  I once made the mistake of saying I liked ‘chunky' jewellery, by which I mean I like expensive, silver, chunky jewellery. But no, Egg seems to think this means anything that looks like a piece of medical equipment in a lurid, neon colour. Or he buys the sorts of accessories that have been hand-made at a craft fair - all a bit ‘incense' and tribal.  So anyway, I was thinking of him when I told him explicitly NOT to buy me accessories. I am not a fussy person, believe me, I will wear most things someone has bought me even if I wouldn't necessarily buy it myself and am not one of those women who only like expensive stuff, I am pretty much usually grateful for anythijng. But I have my limits and I knew he'd  waste his money and I'd have to go through the excruciating pain of opening something I have to pretend to like which let's face it, one does not want to have to do on their birthday.

Well readers, he ignored me. And anyway, he'd already bought the darn accessories f,rom an airport shop in the Dominican Republic which says it all really: Think bling, neon, fake diamond-encrusted. (I mean, bless him but what was he thinking?!)  I opened the big present first - which was a nice black bag - he'd played safe and I did like it Phew!. But then came a turquoise clutch bag, the type an ageing ex-Miss World might use with a crinkly cleavage. (Egg couldn't quite get it right and kept calling it a ‘snatch' bag which made it all the more distasteful!) It had fake snakeskin and stuff all over it and inside was a selection of ‘chunky' jewellery - a massive plastic bangle in bright grass-green and a lime-green watch with a huge square face and fake diamante (??!!) Had he taken leave of his senses?

I tried to lie, but I just couldn't. This was the very thing I had tried to avoid. Then an awful thing happened - I burst into tears right there in the café, uncontrollable sobbing -  a first class basket case.. I don't know why, it was stupid and dramatic but the birthday thing was getting all a bit too much and I felt terrible about having to accept a present that I just didn't want (God strike me down. I am just AWFUL!) . Egg said I was being ridiculous and that it didn't matter and he didn't care or wasn't offended because he had bought it all in a Domincan Republic airport and it had cost him about £2 (er.....which didn't really make me feel any better!)  It was Fergus that set me off, though. His little expectant face, so excited to be giving mummy her birthday presents and so wanting me to love them and now Egg had gone and completely ignored me and put me in the position of having to lie TO MY FIVE YEAR OLD SON!  ( am I just the most unreasonable ungrateful woman in the world for being annoyed by that?) . In my hungover state, I think I may be. But anyway,  I think the drunkenness really started from that moment. I was anxious and felt terribly guilty and was now worried about my little lunch party  - would everyone have a nice time? See! I am a mentalist about birthdays. Just the worst birthday girl in the world. Thankfully, Matt Black had played the present thing very well: three books I had asked for - all in hardback too! Thank God  The moral of the story, Egg? Play it safe please next time. Always play it safe. And when she says don't get me accessories, listen to her!! She knows best...

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