Today, October 5th, is my birthday. It has been that way my whole life. It’s a great day, factually speaking; you can’t argue with that. It’s the beginning of fall (or “autumn” if you’re a pretentious Ivy Leaguer or a republican), the leaves on the trees are celebrating gay pride, plus Halloween is coming up so there’s candy everywhere and your camo/pleather Destiny’s Child costume is almost done (!). I’ve always been a huge fan of my birthday for these reasons, along with the fact that I’m usually showered with gifts, praise and all things edible.

However, a coworker recently threw a figurative stick in the figurative spokes of my figurative wheel of birthday bliss when she mentioned that my birthday is the most common birthday on the calendar. Hold the phone… is that true?! I mean, we’ve all had to share our special day with the juggalo kid in our 10th grade algebra class or that mouth-breather from the accounting department, but this is much bigger. Much worse. Of course the news immediately threw me into an intense spiral of self-reflection also known as a quarter life identity crisis. Who are these other people? Are they prettier than me? Does this make me less special? Could I possibly be getting more attention/treats if I had a different birthday? Why must I always italicize emphasized words when writing? Who am I, really?

In the midst of my internal confusion over the loss of my identity, my coworker proceeded to make the situation even worse by explaining why October 5th is the most common. Drum roll… it’s because it falls almost exactly nine months after New Year’s Eve when all of our parents got drunk and EWWWW!

By this time I was sweating profusely and emitting nervous guttural noises. I needed to rediscover my birthday confidence stat. Thank jeebus for the internet, right? October 5th’s Wikipedia page gave me everything I needed to rebuild myself. As it turns out, my birthday is literally overflowing with eventful events (lol) including, but not limited to Robert Stevens becoming the first victim in the 2001 anthrax attacks and the first documented recovery meeting of Narcotics Anonymous. This is exciting stuff. I mean, where would humanity be without those happenings? Just opening our mail willy-nilly with no fear of immanent death by mysterious white powder and on drugs, that’s where. October 5th  is a saint. Except if October 5, 2011 had never happened, we’d still have our beloved Steve Jobs soooooooo sorry about that :-/

Anyway, when you tack on like a zabrillion peoples’ birthdays (*Ahem* Ever heard of Nikki Hilton?! Yeah, that’s what I thought! Wait, you said “yes,” right?) and forgive your dad because your mom was a total dime and you can’t really blame him, you arrive at the fact that, using mathematical deduction, October 5th is offish the best. day. evaaar. The numbers are there. The proof is in the pudding, or in my case the day-old-no-frosting-or-sprinkles cake donut your “friend” bought you to “celebrate” your “existence.”

Whatevs, over and out. I got snacks to eat.

– Kelsey McDonough