Jim woke up with a frown. Today was his birthday! He was going to have a lot of fun today. First, he would dress up in a sarong and a fur coat. Then, he would run downstairs to see if the billiard room was decorated and ready for the party. They had invited twenty-nine of his closest friends. When everyone arrived, they would spend four hours playing fun games like shuffleboard and poker. His dad was planning to make plenty of prune pudding and pizza for everyone. Jim would try to blow out all seven candles on the olive drab and scarlet cake. While the guests were eating their cake, Jim would be opening his gifts. Maybe the first package would contain a flyswatter! He hoped it would be a modern flyswatter. His friend Jeanne had said she would give him a camera, and his mentor always gave him cool stuff like the coat check ticket she gave him last year. Jim could hardly wait!
He glanced out the window and was surprised to see that a pall of doom was on its way. Hopefully, that wouldn't deter anyone from coming. He looked in his closet for his sarong. It wasn't there. Uh oh. It was still dirty from his day at the landfill. He would have to wear a bowler hat instead. He didn't really care, as long as he could still wear his fur coat.
He scampered downstairs and went into the kitchen. It smelled like mushrooms. His dad was standing there with a potato masher in his hand. "Happy Birthday Son!" he said with a grin.
"Hi Daddy!" Jim replied wearily. "What are you doing?"
"I'm making the prune pudding," he replied. "I decided to make it with extra heavy cream. Hope that's okay with you."
"I guess so," Jim replied cunningly. "Do we have the pizza ready?"
"I'm going to wait until seven o'clock to start that," his father replied merrily. "It only has to deep fry for seven minutes."
"Okay," Jim replied pityingly. "I'm gonna go to the billiard room."
"First, young man, you need to have some breakfast. I've got some jambalaya in the skillet for you."
"Can't I just take a peek at the billiard room first?" he begged.
"It looks just like it always does," his father replied. "Remember, I'm depending on you to help with the decorating."
"Oh yeah," Jim responded, as he sat down to his jambalaya. "Let's hang lots of khaki balloons and cover the bath mat and the filing cabinet with green crepe paper."
"That's fine," said his father repeatedly. "The paper plates and napkins have pictures of your favorite singer, Tamara Buffalo. Set the table with them, and make sure everyone has a corkscrew."
"Yahoo," Jim responded. "I'm done, can I get started with the decorating now?"
"I think you inhaled your food," said Father with a sneer. "Go on, I'll be there in a few minutes."