Look for a cupcake by your plate today, son

Last week the candle factory burned down. Everyone just stood around and sang Happy Birthday.

-- Stephen Wright

My son turns 16 today, and his mother and I have a dilemma.

What sort of celebration -- if any -- does one hold for a young man who reaches this benchmark birthday?

When children are young, it's simple.

Over the years I remember -- with fondness -- the Barney the Dinosaur party, the Lion King party, the Toy Story party. All celebrated with youthful gusto and napkins and party favors to match.

I remember one year we held a party at Fort Discovery, hoping (in vain, I suppose) that a love of science might grip his impressionable young mind.

I remember a couple of parties at the Ice Sports Center back when he played hockey. On other birthdays, we went to the party place that has laser tag, where boys run around in that dark room with guns that shoot beams of red light, trying to ambush each other. (That was fun.)

I was later told that they always give the birthday boy a malfunctioning vest that doesn't register the tag blasts. This often ensures that he will "win."

But that was then. This is now. And he's not a little guy anymore. He's bigger than I am, actually.

So what do we do to acknowledge age 16?

A few weeks ago he floated the idea of inviting several of his friends to a local family restaurant that features waitresses who wear orange shorts and tight tops.

(His mother's eyebrow has remained raised over the idea.)

I proposed he get a group together and they perform some sort of community service project, an idea so noble and devoid of birthday frivolity that I thought his mother would relent and let him go to the restaurant with the girls wearing orange shorts, which I would chaperone.

Still waiting.

I guess we could always celebrate his birthday the way we adults do. Open a few cards, get a cupcake beside your plate at dinner with a candle in it. And go about your regular day.

As a great philosopher once put it, "Turn out the light, the party's over."

I think that was in The Lion King .

-

TODAY'S JOKE: Manny was almost 29 years old. Most of his friends had already gotten married, and Manny just bounced from one relationship to the next.

Finally a friend asked him, "What's the matter? Are you looking for the perfect woman? Are you THAT particular? Can't you find anyone who suits you?"

"No," Manny replied. "I meet a lot of nice girls, but as soon as I bring them home to meet my parents, my mother doesn't like them. So I keep on looking!"

"Listen," his friend suggested, "Why don't you find a girl who's just like your dear old mother?"

Many weeks passed before Manny and his friend got together again.

"So, Manny, did you find the perfect girl yet? One that's just like your mother?"

Manny shrugged his shoulders, "Yes, I found one just like Mom. My mother loved her; they became great friends."

"Excellent! So ... are you and this girl engaged yet?"

"I'm afraid not. My father can't stand her!"