I know how you’re supposed to celebrate birthdays: cake, candles, joyful dinner with loving friends, making out with your significant other, champagne. Cards with jokes about getting old. I’ve had birthday years just like that and loved the crap out of each one.

Last year, I dined with a new friend in a spectaular Italian restaurant, and we ordered unfamiliar foods and ate rich deserts. We toasted my birthday. The evening was perfect. You never have to talk me into cake. Just hand over a fork.

But.

I also dig spending my birthday alone.

That’s kind of messed up, I suppose. What kind of anti-social creep likes to dine alone on his birthday? Who turns off the phone and reads a book by a stream instead of raking in the calls and texts, affectionate jeers, that once-a-year chorus of HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I will admit that every year, I wait by the phone for my Mom and Dad to call early in the morning and sing The Song. I love that tradition, even more so now after losing him.

Mom called this morning and she sang. Her voice was beautiful.

After Parental Singing is achieved, I view the rest of my actual day similar to how I see New Year’s Eve: alone time to reflect on where I’ve been and where I’m headed. But maybe with a little bit of adventure thrown in. The first day I showed up was an adventure! It’s the day I came into the world a blank slate, mostly the same as every crying baby born on August 2nd, but maybe already a little bit different.

But mostly unwritten — who knows how I might turn out?

Over the years, my birthday evolved into Adventure Day.

Last year, I bought a gorilla suit and went banana shopping at Lunds. With the assistance of my lovely dinner companion, we harassed my pals Dave and Don. After dark, I monkeyed up to their windows, tapping and doodling my gorilla fingers on the glass until one of them screamed obscenities unfit for human consumption, and this is coming from me, who believes ‘fucking’ makes a handy adjective.

As to be expected, they chased me through their yard. I threw fresh produce at them and then hopped into the get-away car. Dave chased me down the alley, hurling a banana at our retreating escape. The gorilla returned ten minutes later for another sneak attack.

Adventure Day.

Well, today got a little out of hand.

My drivers’ license expired today, requiring my trip to the DMV for renewal. I regard my trips to DMV as an opportunity. I take ‘theme photos’ for my drivers’ license and I regard the art quite seriously. I did ‘Giddy’ one year wearing a bow tie and an unnatural grin that made people uncomfortable. I’ve done ‘Furious,’ and ‘Surprised.’

The most recent is ‘Drug Dealer.’ I didn’t shave for three days prior, wore a striped shirt that looked like prison garb, and my hair was greasy from not showering. I arched one eyebrow and silently mouthed, “Duhhhhhh” while she finished saying the word, “–eeeeeeeseee!”

This morning, perhaps the Olympic spirit was in the air because I decided to go for the gold. This year’s theme:  Magic!

Of course, that would mean I needed to dye my hair black, since all good magicians have jet black hair and I am so blond people tell me blond jokes and then apologize. I required noticeable, black eyebrows I could arch meaningfully to indicate ‘I have a secret.’ Of course, matching black goatee.

Magic!

I called Ann to tell her my hair dying plans. She said, “Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no…”

I couldn’t find a single flaw in my plan but Ann found a few:  they could arrest me, everyone will know it’s not my real color, I’ve never dyed my own hair, ever, so I have no clue what I’m doing, my goth hair would be on my license for the next four years, etc. Even if she suspects it’s pointless and I’m determined to be an idiot, Ann feels obliged to remind me when there could be consequences that require bail money.

For a professor of Education, she gives good legal advice.

“It’ll be great,” I assured her. “You’ll see.”

Things didn’t go great.

Just to give you some general direction of where this train wreck is headed, pretty soon I will explain how the DMV lady said at one point, “You’ve got a big black smudge on your forehead.”

But let’s return to a happier time.

Full of confidence, I headed to the local pharmacy and proudly asked for their hair dye products. I returned a minute later to ask where to find the mens‘ hair dye products. I returned a minute later to ask where to find hair dye you can wash out an hour later after the joke’s over.

Armed with my jet black spray-on dye, I went home.

I taped off my forehead and ears with blue painters’ tape. (Got an iPhone photo of that to send to Ann when she’s having a bad day.) That wonderful blue tape left a clean black horizon right at my hairline. Don’t worry, I rubbed it in with a towel to make it look more natural.

I sent photos to Ann, and then when text responses could no longer contain her, she called to laugh in my ear. I expressed my worry about the uneven stripes of black cutting across the back of my head. Looked like a sick tiger back there.

I say, “What if someone figures out it’s for my theme photos at the DMV?”

Ann laughed hard at that. In a barely audible voice (which I’m confident was accompanied by her wiping away tears), she said, “Oh honey, nobody – nobody – is going to care about your little prank. They’re going to be so horrified by your awful dye job, they will focus on feeling humiliation for you.”

We agreed I needed to take a clean towel, the dye, and the toothbrush I used to do my eyebrows. Against Ann’s sage advice, I decided to wear a baseball cap to cover up my striped head. I promised not to let it touch the front.

“No, no. No hat. That’s not going to work out well,” she said.

Kudos, Ann. Right again.

I blasted the AC all the way to the DMV so that nothing melted on my head. The last thing I needed was more black streaks down my face. When I arrived, I coolly took the number sixteen from the red dispenser.

I was cool.

Just another jet-black-haired person here to renew their drivers’ license. Nothing to see here.

Someone behind the counter called out for number “Ninty-three.”

Fuck. Sixteen wasn’t even in the same decade.

I had assumed this errand would be over quickly. I had been expecting more of a get-in and get-out caper. And who assumes that? Who thinks, ‘I’ll pop on over to the DMV quickly…’  Nobody. You bring a book, a deck of cards, and maybe a pack of cigs to trade for food.

I texted my plight to Ann. This could take a while. What if my hair melted?

Another of my unfortunate decisions was to compensate for the obnoxious dye smell with an abusive quantity of cologne. I only own one bottle of cologne which is actually a mixture of woodsy oils given to me by a sexy, young hippie. On nights when I wander through my neighborhood pretending I’m hiking a redwood forest, I might rub some on my moustache under my nose to facilitate my imagination.

In short, I reeked of a cross between rabbit-tested chemicals and an angry forest.

The DMV was packed. I lowered myself with resignation between two individuals who were pleasant enough when I first sat down.  I am sad to report that my neighborly relationships soon soured.

When I texted the smell issue to Ann, she replied with, “This just keeps getting better and better.”

Every case simply took forever. How could every single person’s issue have such complications? Then there was the guy who just kept yacking about cars. At one point, I almost got up and said to Ninety-Eight, “Nobody cares about your neighbor’s jeep and how much he sold it for online. Fill out your damn forms.”

If I had been my blonde self, I would have done it. We’re blondes. Who cares if we’re idiots. But as a raven-haired man, I had a responsibility to my new people to keep it cool. Chill. Magic!

The gruff lady barked out, “Six!”

She was living the DMV stereotype.

I texted Ann that I had to sign off. I had work to do. Mentally, I began calculating the odds of her being the one to call out “Sixteen!” Plus, I wanted to work through my answers to awkward questions.

Nobody approached for ‘six.’

“Seven,” she called out. “Seven!”

Nobody came.

“Eight!” she yelled.

“Nine!”

“Ten!”she said, followed immediately by, “You’re kidding me.”

After I had snagged my number, I watched people stroll in and grab a number. Their whole affect shifted into despondency. All of us were doomed to stay for a long time. We were a mass of seething, surly emotions, all of us, gritting our teeth about stupid Ninety-Eight. I watched a few people storm out, huffing. But this was ridiculous.

In an accusatory voice, she yelled, “Eleven.”

Nobody came forth.

“Twelve!”

She was getting pissed. “My god. Thirteen!”

Yup. You guessed it. Nobody stepped out. By the time she got to sixteen, she had worked herself into a frothy rage and she despised all of us dopes staring at her, slack-jawed in those permanent chairs, cowards who refused to step forward.

Well, great. This was the kind of DMV rage I was hoping to avoid.

I walked slowly to her station.

My friend behind the counter was not in a great mood.

Her coworker leaned over and said to my lady, “Everybody’s mad at me today.”

In her gruff tone, my lady said, “You get used to it.”

I felt sad. They have hard jobs. People yell at them for laws they did not design. Earlier I saw a man argue with an employee over handing over the motorcycle’s deed. She kept repeating politely, “It’s the law, Sir. I have to collect it.”

I turned to the initiator of the conversation and said, “I’m mad at you and I’m not even in your line. But I’m furious!”

She looked at me in shock and I suddenly remembered my plan to not draw undo attention to myself. What happened to playing it cool, dark-haired man? I guess I’m not a blank slate after all.

“I’m furious,” I said, and raised my fists in the air, shaking them like an angry Hulk. “I could scream.”

She laughed, my lady laughed, and I laughed too. My dad said shit like that all the time to strangers and it worked.

We giggled some more and I said, “I’m sorry people are being douche bags to you today. That sucks.”

She laughed and thanked me, and my lady said with good cheer, “C’mon. Vision Test.”

Then, the big moment: the photo.

I took off the ball cap. Sat on the stool.

She said, “Smile.”

I said, “I don’t have a great smile, so if you don’t mind, I won’t.”

Instead…Magic!

I saw a click and being very eager to leave, I leaned forward just in time for the flash to burn my much-closer eyes.

“We have to retake it,” she said.

After the second photo, she said to me, “We have to retake that one too. You’ve got a big black smudge on your forehead.”

She handed me a couple paper towels and I turned to their little tiny mirror. I panicked. Yup, a fat black line the exact shade of my hair color created a crescent moon on my forehead. Almost like a person wearing a baseball cap might get if he accidentally forgot and rubbed the cap against his forehead.

I wiped frantically, but the smudge kept smearing. Plus, the mirror was small and I couldn’t see very well – that flash was still burning my eyes. Then, the paper towels smudged the side of my coal-colored hair, and dragged more black chalk onto my face. I scrubbed a few more times, aware this was taking longer than it should and she would be watching.

I said, “I worked on my car today.”

What the hell? Why the hell did I say that? Augh.

I spit on my fingers but they smelled like woodsy oil from my generous application. Sure enough, I was soon using oil to rub the black ash deeper into my skin.

When I finished scrubbing my face and dared to look in the mirror, I now saw a terrified coal miner. Who the hell was that man staring back at me in sheer panic. A grifter? Ex-con? Terrorist?

Adventure Day achieved: I lost track of myself. Became someone completely new.

I cleaned up the best I could. She took the photo and said nothing. I think maybe she was pretty cool after all.

Yet, I don’t think the impact was Magic!

Not even Magic.

Not even magic.

We’ll see.

The DMV will mail me my new drivers’ license in seven to ten days. And in the meantime, I will feel like a kid again, excitedly checking the mail every day, eager to find a wonderful surprise just for me.

That’s the best part of Adventure Day, perhaps, feeling young, feeling goofy.

Getting excited about being me, whether dark-haired or blond.

Well, that and birthday cake.

And Parental Singing.