Knackered Evades Birthday Travel with Benzos

   Hey there, Knackered here. Fresh off the freeway, Knackered is glad to be back on familiar turf.

   He’s just returned from dropping Ms Knackered off at the airport.  Dragging two enormous suitcases packed with personal effects and  presents for the grand kids, she’s headed south.

   Its time for the fall birthday bash.  Apparently things grow exponentially every year.  What started as cake and balloons, has now become a carnival for the entire community.  Last year saw a bouncy house and food truck enter the fray.  Festivities went on until the children had broken all their super soakers and fallen asleep on the grass.  Adults stayed on to share drinks around a campfire.  It was an event for all ages.

   Subsequent celebrations by nearby friends and families will need to reach high to top this one, but somehow, Knackered suspects they will succeed in doing just that.  They could feature hot air balloon rides in the ‘common area’.  Whatever It will be, it’s essential that it top anything heretofore seen at a kids’ birthday celebration.

   Parties aside, the kid competition has approached the extreme, if not ridiculous level.  Whether you go by plane, train, or automobile.  School your kids public or private.  Secular or Holy Superior. If you’re reading this while Junior or Junette is in the fetal position, you may be too late to register for pre school or vet your preferred nanny.

    Buying back to school stuff has kept this phenomenon alive.   Nothing that was is going to make it for now.  Last year’s  Sponge Bob backpack will have to be replaced by this year’s unicorn one.  Pegged or flared jeans will surely go the way of ripped and torn.  The heavy down coat of last year is sure to be eschewed in favor of a dark ‘hoody’. The junk you bought for academics was, no doubt, chucked on the homeward trek in June.  You’ll need to get cooler stuff and new pencil boxes as well.

   All this is enough to enable the late, great, Knackered Matriarch to be resurrected from her grave and run screaming into the nearest Target store.

   He (Knackered), has fond memories of his own back to school shopping days. Young Knackered’s one and two were ushered into the downtown area which actually had real stores that were not a part of any type of mall.

   The much knackered mother was a busy woman who did not usually even have time to remove the curlers from her hair.  Shopping was limited to 30 minutes; the time before the city bus would arrive back to take them home.

   Knackered has no memory of what counted as cool back in the day.  However, he did have a Roy Roger’s cowboy shirt that he wore till it was threadbare.  He never knew what happened to it when he moved up to junior high.  But suspects it wound up in the ‘rag bag’.

   As for birthdays, the last one he remembers was made timeless in black and white.  It featured a chocolate sheet cake and one present; a basketball.

   He won’t be attending any birthday blowouts this fall. Just driving to the airport and back is all he can handle. As much as he’d like to see the smiling faces of the grand kids, the whole traveling thing is no longer his friend.  Of course it’s not.