One of the troubles with being a triplet, it seems, is the three-way birthdays. And no, by that I don't mean kinky three-way sex birthday shenanigans, thank you. What I mean is that simple, first rule of Sesame Street: sharing. I mean, have you ever tried to share – I don't know – clothes with someone? Or, let's try something bigger – a room? Sucks, doesn't it?

Now try sharing a day with someone. Not just any day, your day, the one everybody teaches you is special and yours alone. Only it's not. It also belongs to two other guys in your family who, by the way, also share your clothes, your room, and your face.

Really sucks.

But what can you do? Our parents aren't stupid – they know we got a bad deal when it comes to birthdays. And maybe if they'd only had the three of us, they could have coddled our self-esteems and had three parties with three sets of guest lists and three different menus, all on the same day. With eight kids? Never, never going to happen; they barely had time for one, and definitely not enough time to sit down with us and calmly discuss party options.

Rather than deal with it, they'd put us in a room, tell us to figure out what we wanted, and leave us alone for an hour.

They had to have known this was always going to end in a brawl. I guess when you have triplets, you just stop being overly concerned with black eyes and deep bruising after a while.

It was never the guest list – we all pretty much had the same friends – or food – kids' birthday parties don't have the most sophisticated menus – that provoked the violence; it was the stupid theme. Adam would want a cowboy party, Jordan'd want dinosaurs, and God, I pushed for an astronaut theme for years before I won, but we could never settle, and in minutes everything'd be reduced to a big wrestling match on the floor.

I don't know if you've ever been involved in a three-way wrestle – get your minds out of the gutter, perverts – but it's not fun at all. Basically, it always ends with you getting kicked in the eye and the crotch at the same time.

So anyway, this went on year after year, until suddenly three sets of hormones kicked in all at once, and we kind of decided on a set plan of 'boy-girl party, music, pizza' from about age eleven onwards. Well, honestly, it was more Adam and Jordan who were adamantly (pun intended?) pro-girl all of a sudden; I was more than happy to continue with the boys-only parties we'd been having, but it took me a few years to figure out what that meant.

Anyway, yeah, so I've been thinking about it a lot tonight, how birthdays suck so inherently for us triplets. I mean, not that it's so bad for my brothers, especially since this year, for the big 1-6, Mom and Dad finally agreed to let us have an unsupervised party, but it's not exactly going to do me a lot of good. Add to that especially because Jeff Schafer somehow managed to get his hands on a couple of half-finished liquor bottles (I bet his step-dad'll be discovering a theft from his study very, very soon) and everyone's getting drunk for the first time.

A house full of tipsy girls, dark corners, and no supervision? Yeah, not exactly my idea of a good time. But I don't have the guts to explain that to my brothers just yet.

So basically, I'm chalking today up to be yet another vaguely dissatisfying birthday, made all the more memorable by the random puddles of puke I'm going to have to help clean up and the fact that when Mom and Dad get home we'll never be allowed freedom ever again. Next year we'll be back to cowboys or something.

And I'm in one of those dark corners, trying to explain some of this to Jeff because, you know, it's good to get things off – look, if you think I'm going somewhere X-rated with that, you really have problems – your chest sometimes, and maybe he has some advice. I'll give him credit for trying to follow along. Maybe he's just had too much to drink, or I haven't had enough (but have you ever tried scotch? It's gross.), but it's just not happening. He's not even looking directly at me, for God's sake, just sort of nodding faintly and staring at – I don't know, what? My mouth? Who the hell knows. Anyway, it's kind of frustrating.

I'm standing up to go, saying thanks for listening, because really, what's the point of a one-sided conversation in the long run? So I'm going – or, no, trying to go, because Jeff's grabbed my wrist, pulling me back down to sit, and – oh, Jesus, I don't know if he's had way more to drink than I thought, or way less because he really has a way of reading between the lines of my rant, and he's kissing me.

Tequila, punch, birthday cake, and spit probably isn't the best combination in a person's mouth, but I really think my special day is brightening all of a sudden.

God, finally. Happy birthday to me.


Author's Note: I own none of the characters mentioned above, and make no profit from this story. Also, it has nothing to do with "Blue."

Written for Joy on the occasion of her birthday. throws confetti