Easy! because it just actually occurred. I’m a misanthrope, but even misanthropes need friends.

When I was five or six, I met a guy in 1st grade Sunday School and we have been friends ever since.

A couple of weeks ago, I celebrated my 60th birthday, my wife took me to the Kentucky Derby Museum to start my birthday off with a tour of Churchill Downs. As I was perusing the gift store prior to our tour, I heard a voice behind me “what are you doing here!” I turned around to see my friend of 55 years. He and his wife had flown in to celebrate with me.

An extraordinary gift.

can’t deceide amongst these;

• when I was around 3 years old, my mom gave me a strange hot pink plastic toy hair dryer that ran on 1 AA battery. It had a drawing of a strange medusa-like girl on it. I’m a dude. I have no idea, how or why did she got that for me as a present, but i fucking loved it. so much so it’s tiny momentary switch that turned it on completely broke my thumb. it made me really happy. (probably because my parents worked a lot so I was put into a nursery, and seeing my mom coming there for grabbing me at the end of the day always made me happy. so I maybe connected the toy hair dryer with this)

• around 12 years old (it was around 2008-2009), a family friend gave me a Psion Series 3A palmtop computer (a retro handheld 16bit computer from the mid-to-end 90’s) with few SSD cartridges (storage). previously it was used by the police force and on those cartridges I’ve found several police work related softwares written for the device. It was a special gift, I loved that machine. I learned a lot about programming on it with its strange programming language called OPL. Had a complete manual for it in my native language. It had not the best keys, but typed countless of lines of code on it.

A Nintendo 64!!!

screech

My best friend knows that I collect watches and that Alice in wonderland is one of my favorite fictional universes. She commissioned a silver pocket watch with the white rabbit on the front which also serves as an inside joke between us. It’s the most thoughtful gift I’ve ever received and I love it.

Do inheritances count?

I have to make a conscious effort to drink water, and my health requires that I do so. In order to not be dehydrated and sick, I carry a water bottle wherever I go.

I had a really cool NES water bottle that I loved because it had a push-button flip top. The less effort it takes for me to get to the water, the better! But eventually, the top broke and I begrudgingly had to get another water bottle.

Got one off Amazon (during lockdowns), and I just always had issues with it. Too big, flip top would come open in my bag sometimes, hard to clean, etc. I finally asked for a water bottle for Christmas as the one thing I wanted, and my SIL came through.

The flip top is SO easy to clean, the button is great, it has a handle that can flip up & down and doubles as a safety that covers up the button (so no more accidental openings!!), it has a pour spout AND a clever af straw-less sip option built into the top and it is just… so good. She got me a bright orange one, because that was the only color they had in the store at the time, and she was worried I would have preferred a darker, more neutral color. Nope! Turns out, it’s perfect for making sure I don’t constantly lose my water bottle anymore!

As you can see, I will ramble to anyone who asks about it, because it’s just so damn good.

I recently realized that it comes in different sizes, too!!

So anyone in the market for a damn good water bottle, check out the “owala”-brand. It’s extremely inexpensive, great quality, lots of color & size choices, and it’s just great. I swear I’m not a company shill– just a passionate hydro homie.

Here’s a photo of mine. Yours will not come with stickers. Gotta supply your own. Sorry!

Life.

“And the worst?” I hear you ask…

Also, life.

Just a really nice day with off with my wife, including really great sex, on my birthday.

My dog, my best friend

A Nintendo Wii with Super Mario Galaxy, it was the first game console I ever owned.

A watch, when I was 15.

40th birthday twofer. Mom gave me a Kenner power droid still in its packaging that she’d saved since my childhood. One of my friends followed that with the rancor in its box.

A huge box of used Fisher Technik components. I was 10 at the time and these things kept my phantasy busy for years.

Chair.

Glasses to correct colorblindness. Mine is mild. I didn’t even want the glasses. Until about half a second after putting them on.