In my extremely lengthy last post (that came to a little over 3000 words, longer than most of the essays and scientific reports I had to produce as an undergrad at uni) I forgot to mention something else confirming what an absolute rotten-to-the-core human being John is. I get very excited about my birthday. Well, I’m dreading my birthday this year because 23 isn’t exactly a good age to be turning. It’s just getting on the wrong side of youth, especially when people your own age all around you are having children (please no!), buying houses (now who has that kind of money? Don’t they want to travel before they get a mortgage?) and getting engaged or even, heaven forbid, married (a boyfriend would be nice, though)! But in the past, it’s just so nice, to have a day entirely about you, even if you still have to go to work. I usually start a countdown to Christmas/my birthday at about 140 days. I used to work out how many more days to go then before each lecture began head up my notepaper with a nice big header like ‘138 days until Christmas’. I wasn’t even just limited to my own notepaper, either. My friends who shared my lectures could look back through their own Botany notes while studying for exams and see my Christmas/birthday countdown, often illustrated with tinsel and Christmas trees (depending on the boringness of the lecture). This is all getting a bit off-track though, although it serves to illustrate my birthday obsession.
Two years ago, I was excitedly telling people at work that it was only 10 more sleeps until my birthday (and therefore 16 more sleeps until Christmas). While waiting in the queue for service at the bar, I was chatting to John (he was still just a barman back then), saying ‘only 10 more sleeps until the best day of the year – the 19th of December!’ John replied with ‘I hate the 19th of December – it’s the worst day of the year!’ I thought he was just stirring me (surely he must already know that that date is my birthday, given that I’ve been harping on about it for at least three months already), and said in a mock-hurt tone, ‘why? Because I was born then?’ ‘Oh, is that your birthday, I didn’t know,’ he tells me. ‘I hate that day because that was the date my brother died.’
Well, there’s not a lot you can say to such a statement, except the standard ‘I’m sorry.’ I have been very careful since then not to mention my birthday to him since then. I’ve thought about it from time to time over the past couple of years. It’s sad that my happy day is such a sad one for him. EXCEPT IT ISN’T, I RECENTLY FOUND OUT! There was a bit of annoyance at work that John was having two weekends off in a row, weekends being our busiest times and you have to fight hard to get them off, and book in for weeks ahead, sometimes. John was having one Saturday night off to celebrate his birthday, then the next weekend he was having Friday night off, it actually being his birthday and he wasn’t working on his birthday, and then Saturday night as well, to do a little more celebrating. The first Saturday night of his celebrations I asked another staff member why John was celebrating his birthday a week before his birthday. She told me ‘oh, that’s because his brother died one day before his own birthday so he likes to celebrate his own a week earlier so it’s not clouded by thoughts of his brother’s death.’
‘His brother died on the 19th of December,’ I said.
‘No, he told me and quite a few other people that he died the day before his birthday.’ She responded. And so he had, I checked. But he definitely told me that his brother died on my own birthday, it’s something that I’ve always remembered as being simply awful, and I’ve thought about it on my actual birthday especially ever since.
So, his lies are just getting deeper and deeper. Although, I don’t know what is to be gained by telling me two years ago that his brother died on my own birthday. And did he even die the day before John’s birthday? But either way, he’s lied about his own brother’s death for no reason that I can see, and I find that most distasteful. |
Do you know his brother's even DEAD? Maybe he's just being an attention whore. Certainly sounds about right!