I don’t remember how old I was when I had to do dishes on my birthday. I do, however, remember  the blood.

We lived in Hayden, Colorado and we still lived in a trailer in Meadow Village (more on that in another post) and my sister and I were expected to alternate dish washing nights. In this particular year, it turned out that November 16th was my dishes night and November 17th was my sister’s night.

Now, to my teenaged logic, having my sister’s dishes day fall on my birthday offered me no bonus whatsoever (not having to do dishes on my birthday was nothing special if I wasn’t scheduled to do dishes on my birthday). It was no different than her having to do dishes on Tuesday after I did them on Monday. This, again to my teenager logic, hardly seemed fair. I therefore failed to do dishes on the 16th fully expecting to not have to do them on my birthday.

However, there is no justice in the world.

Rather than be granted clemency and a “Happy Birthday, Son” I was told I had to do dishes on my birthday because I hadn’t done them the night before. This is roughly the equivalent of having someone spit on the Baby Jesus at Christmas (not really, but I was a teenager so this logic made sense).

As a counter, I offered the logical argument of “Yeah, but it’s my birthday.” and was countered with “Yeah, how ’bout that” and then did dishes.

Karma then ensued. Although I’m not sure who’s karma it was.

I was cleaning a McDonald’s (or maybe a Pepsi’s) Collector’s glass (I vaguely remember it being Superman). As I washed the inside, the glass broke apart and I cut my hand.

My mom offered parental logic along the lines of “If you bleed to death, you’re not getting any birthday cake” and then offered me first aid.

To this day I feel justice was not served. The physical scars healed eventually though.