The Happy Birthday Dilemma

You can't read one without the other.

The Happy Birthday Dilemma

     Yesterday we celebrated my daughter Theresa's birthday.
     We kept the guest list small and the attire was face mask, social distancing required.

     We wanted to eat out in the backyard, but as the weather was damp and overcast we were forced inside. The menu was my version of bibibop-buffet,

...each tribe taking turns at the food stations,

...and sitting on opposite sides of the dining room table and making the effort not to breath on each other.
      When it was time for dessert we brought out the cakes. (We'd decided to make this a go-big-or-go-home event and so I bought two Costco cakes,

...the kind with the mousse filling, one vanilla and one chocolate).

      Of course blowing out candles on a cake was out of the question; eating something upon which  someone had sprayed droplets, aerosol, and, who knows, maybe even some escaped slobber, is totally unthinkable these days.
    Which, when you think about it, begs the question: Why, even before COVID, did such an unsanitary, unsavory custom ever take hold in the first place?
       This was a question we all found ourselves pondering at last night's birthday party, and our  eyes were suddenly opened to the fact that something that the human race has been doing since time immemorial, something not even the most fastidious among us ever gave a thought to is actually...disgusting. Seriously, even when COVID is as forgotten as the Spanish Flu was up until a few months ago, can you see yourself ever again eating cake that someone has - ugh - blown on?
         Anyway, that matter having been settled - that blowing out candles on a cake actually is now, has always been, and will always be gross - we then wondered, what about singing "Happy Birthday?" After all, we've been warned that singing is among the most effective ways of propelling those potentially dangerous aerosol droplets through the air.
        We discussed the matter, and decided that rather than forgoing "Happy Birthday" altogether, we would sing very, very softly in our masks. Which we did.

      Then Theresa  took a candle into the kitchen and made her wish responsibly.