Best/Worst Nerdy Birthday Stories: And the Winners Are…

?Although there were only 250 or so entries in this weekend’s contest, it was even harder to judge than usual. Partially because most people wrote full-on biographies of their birthday experiences, and partially because… well, I’ll get to the other problems in a minute. First, here are the massive pile of honorable mentions:

BEST:
? Fanboy: “My favorite gift that night? A feeling I get maybe once a year at a comic con, if I’m lucky- a feeling of nerdy belongingness.”
? Kes: “For a present I got SNAKE MOUNTAIN and I proceeded to spend the next couple of years driving everyone batshit insane singing through the spooky microphone. Bahaha!!”
? Tennawatches, for having a Star Wars bar mitzvah complete with dancers dressed as Slave Leia
? Rosalina rubylips: “I finally got Castle Grayskull, which was pretty sweet because then the Rebels no longer had to party with the Eternians in two old shoeboxes I’d glued together.”
? Kyle, whose father wrote an entirely original Star Trek murder mystery party play, and whose mother made uniforms for everybody
? Drunken Lunk, whose mom forced an entire summer school to participate in a Star Wars-themed birthday for him and sing him happy birthday
? TrudyMonk, who got to hang with the cast of Spamalot and got complimented by Hank Azaria, David Hyde Pierce and Tim Curry
? LealahLupin3, whose friends threw her a really sweet party, my favorite part being her boyfriend handed her a Victoria Secret bag with a card that read “Here’s something we can both enjoy!” and contained the Dragonball Z season 3 DVD box set inside
? tasurinchi: “One of my friends, an irredeemable paste and Play Dough eater, finished his piece of Optimus Prime cake and then ate his entire paper Transformers plate for our entertainment.”
? Tom Duffy, who was promised an appearance by Leonardo, but got Michelangelo, resulting in he and all of his 5-year-old party-goers attacking a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

WORST:
? DoctorSmashy, for being forced to relive the nightmare that is E.T.
? MyNoNos, for being scared shitless by He-Man and Skeletor
? D. Highmore, because his girlfriend apparently fucked Kenny Baker
? Nerd-Herd, for choosing a Pokemon party and getting shunned by her small-town, Pokemon-is-Stanic-believing neighbors
? Kayla, whose boyfriend had a Star Wars party featuring a Han Solo who was actually a Trekkie
? Niner, for getting awesome Star Wars swag for his birthday, only to wake up the next morning having it all replaced by sports equipment by his awful father
? Dan, for forcing getting abandoned by his friends to see the debacle that was Matrix: Reloaded by himself
? Fakeassname, whose mother bought him Panzer Dragoon Saga but no Sega Saturn so he would be inspired to save up for one, even though he was a jobless 15-year-old

? T-Cake, whose mother hired someone to dress like Marge Simpson, but “what popped out to greet me had monstrous eyes of eggshells and uneven yellow body paint as well as claws of cleaning gloves and a blue clown wig.”
? Robyn Robotron, for planning a brilliant Logun’s Run party for her 30th borthday, but moving to a new city just before it
? ttoplessnerd: “A few days on my last birthday, I entered a Topless Robot contest. On my birthday, I went to see if I had won a topless robot tshirt, and to my dismay, hadn’t even gotten an honorable mention.”
? Zade, whose birthday cake started a fire which destroyed part of his living room and all of his presents

And, a few other  assorted honorably mentionable goodies:

? T-Cake, who threw a massive Avatar-themed party for a non-nerd friend who only once said Avatar looking kind of interesting

? whatsmyhouse: “When I turned twelve this dude busted in the door of this cabin i was staying in and told me I was a wizard. It was pretty life changing.”

? pumpkinguts: “Any birthday you can walk away from is a good birthday and any birthday you can walk away from holding the severed head of a really hot filipino ladyboy is a great birthday!”

? LicenseToWill: “Long story short, my dad got really drunk on my 18th birthday and made me aware of the fact that he called my mom Chewbacca on the day of my conception… Thanks Dad, it burns my eyes to just think about it.”

? R3MY: “Googling “THE HARD FUCK” does not yield desirable results.”

But most honorably and mention-worthy of all, TR commenter Blandsoap actually created a human being who had her 0th birthday during the contest. Lily Kal-El Blandsoap was born at 3:17 pm on March 28th, 2010. My utmost congratulations to the Blandsoaps; I’d say they’re the real winners of the contest, but there actually are a few more on the next page.

So why was this contest extra tough to judge? Several reason. First of all, despite my pleas for no stories of genuine tragedy — at the very least involving death of a loved one — Gryen, ZeroCorpse, Scortia and KatieTheta went ahead and bummed us all out with birthday stories involving the death of a loved one. They had horrific experiences and in that regard deserve shirts, but then they also ignored pretty much the one rule I had for the contest, so what do I do? Also, regarding the “best” birthday story — D. saw the 1989 Batman movie Gotham City set at Pinewood Studios in England on his birthday, which was insanely awesome, but wouldn’t you say Cecilia R. deserves a shirt for this “best” birthday?

Cecilia R. said:

Well this the best nerdy birthday. You see I’m Mexican American and female. That means by birthright for my 15th birthday I must have a huge freaking party with friends and relatives paying homage to me in loads of gifts and jewels because at that age I’m recognized as a woman. When I was younger I expected something huge and grand because my parents spent $5,000 on my older sister’s birthday. She was given a huge princess dress and I was forced to be her back up dancer in a very intricate introduction dance thing. Mind you she is 7 years older than me so there was plenty of time to save up money for my party…
Well my father unfortunately lost his job many months before my birthday and we were hardly making ends meet to the point we were expecting our water to be shut off and were very scared that my whole family and I were going to be homeless. I wasn’t expecting a birthday at all but my mom pulled some strings and my closest relatives came and made a pot luck.
They prepared all of my favorite foods but the kicker was they made them all Legend of Zelda themed. So everything was green: green salsa, green tamales, green cheesecake, green punch, etc. My mom even made a multi-layered fruit cake with green frosting and a bright yellow triforce made from peaches and pears in the middle. The whole thing from scratch and she must of stayed up all night to make it in order to keep it a secret. And I bawled and bawled my eyes out. Not because she pulled all this together our of no where but because with making a Legend of Zelda themed party she accepted that I was a complete nerd. Because unlike my siblings and my female cousins I didn’t dress myself up, I didn’t play with make-up, I played video games.

D. will have memories of seeing Gotham City for the rest of his life; Cecilia gets the shirt. As for worst, well, these three Worst “winners” are genuinely sad, but at least no one died.

The Amazing Rando said:

Okay I guess I’ll enter this nightmare contest with one of my worst. It was my twentieth birthday and I was a raging MST3K fan. My friends knew of my obsession and they went all out. I mean they had streamers specially made, a cake shaped like the Satellite of Love, and the most glorious thing I have ever seen a Pinata shaped like Dr. Forrester. I was so happy there were tears in my eyes. It was an incredible party everyone I knew bought me some kind of MST3K gift, I got every season of the show on DVD and I even got my own hand crafted model of Tom Servo(my favorite of the robots). I thought I could die happy right then and there, but unfortunately God likes to mock me so just after I opened the final present, my idiot drunk of a father crashed his car into my backyard destroying everything. The streamers were wreaked, the cake fell in the pool, and my precious Tom Servo model was run over by this ass-clown I call a father. I was happy, truly happy, for all of two hours, and to this day I have never felt the kind of joy I felt that day. Not only did my drunk of a father ruin what could only have been the happiest day of my life but he made me into the bitter angry man I am today all because he mistook the gas pedal for the brakes. He ruined my life and I will HATE him for as long as I’m alive. He even had the nerve to tell me he was sorry while he was lying on his deathbed, and so completely out of spit and hatred I had for this man I told this man that he can go dump his sorrow in a river, and drop dead. This horrible birthday still haunts me today. So in closing Fuck You Dad, I hope your burning in hell!!!

Monkeyboy Prime said:

My 9th birthday was my first birthday after my mom and dad had separated. My dad had been stationed in Germany, and my mom had moved us along with her new boyfriend to Florida. I was at a new school, didn’t know anyone, and all I wanted was the G.I.Joe General. My dad was a huge nerd and he always got me G.I.Joe stuff. He knew which ones I needed. It was what we bonded over. Two weeks before my birthday my dad called and asked what I wanted. So he sends my mom the money for my General. Now my mom is a recovering drug addict, and at the time she was doing a lot of meth. Well she took the money and bought drugs. She got me 4 joes, 3 of which I already had and a tmnt pencil set. To top it off her boyfriend had a friend staying in our garage who when he moved out stole the 20 bucks I got from my Grandma for my birthday.

Prophet for Profit said:

You want to know about my worst birthday? That’s the big 10. This was at the tail end of my parents’ divorce which was dragged out for about a year, and I was there favorite bone. The week leading up to the big day, my parents were at war over who was going to host my party and why the other one would just screw it up. My mom thought that my dad was too incompetent to handle one child let alone a dozen, and my dad thought that being around her pussy new-agey boyfriend would mess with our sense of masculinity. Good times. My mom won out, which was a forgone conclusion anyway, given the custody agreement.
Despite the fighting, I was excited as fuck for my party and the “special guest” who my mom and her boyfriend said was going to make an appearance. Whenever she brought it up she smiled smugly at my dad, who bit his lip shook his head and rolled his eyes, but I didn’t know why. Earlier that day, my grandma gave me a Toys ‘R Us gift certificate that I insisted on using it before the party. They warned me that if I did that, then I shouldn’t be disappointed if bought something and later found out the one of my friends bought it, too. But I was insistent, so my dad and I set out before the party, and a few minutes into the drive, I realized I had the card, but left the certificate back at my mom’s, so my dad turned back. After looking for it, and suspiciously not seeing my mom or her boyfriend, I went up to her room to ask if she’d seen it. I think I recall sounds coming from the room before I opened the door, but to be honest my mind has tried to block out as much of it as possible. And then it happened. I walked in on my mom…having sex…with Batman…graphically. I still remember that numb feeling that comes over you when you know you witnessed something really horrible, but you don’t fully appreciate it. So I ran into my room and I locked myself there until the evening, feeling ill and dazed. My parents tried pleading with me to come out, chastised me for being extremely rude to the guests, then when my father heard why I locked myself in my room, I was subjected to the most hateful back and forth sniping of my life. My father kept screaming, “YOU WHORE!!!” At first my mom was defensive, but after a short while, she started lashing back with both barrels blazing. In the end, my dad took me back to his place, muttering under his breath the whole way. I was terrified. And because God loves kicking me in the balls, my dad’s actions violated their custody agreement, so “Yaaaaaaaaaay! More court dates, depositions, and allegations of abuse!”
And then there was the canceled party. After my friends arrived, my mom and her boyfriend (still in the Batsuit, mind you) kept telling them that I’d be down in a minute, but eventually they told them that they had to cancel for family reasons. For a little while, there was a rumor among my friends that I through the party just to get presents and running away was just a way to get them out as quickly as possible. And because my parents were too embarrassed to give the real reason, their parents were given the runaround, so they were wary of their kids hanging out with someone from such a rude, “dramatic” family. I didn’t get invited to parties for a while. Eventually it blew over. To date the one’s I hang with still ask me what happened and I refuse to answer, I’d never live it down.
The icing is that the next year, my mom bought me a Batman-themed cake, in what I can only assume was a study of psycho-sexual PTSD in children. Anyway, my mom married the dude, and it turns out that their little justice union led to the conception of my little half-brother. I love the kid, and he thinks I walk on air, but now I don’t even have the luxury of those around me feeling compelled to humor me in my belief that that was the single worst day in history with no redeeming value at all. 11 years on, my stepfather and I remain cordial but distant, but in an occasional effort to bond with me, my stepfather might “hi-lariously” allude to the incident when he hears me talk about nerdy things or himself hears something nerdy that he wants to pass on to me.
And the worst part is that I’m as much to blame as anyone else. I insisted on buying the toys before the party. I’m the one who forgot the gift certificate. I’m the one who went exploring. Because of me, a perfectly innocent ice cream cake was wasted.

…yeah. Drunk driving dads, moms stealing birthday cash for drugs, and the loss of innocence, love of Batman, and an ice cream cake. No need to congratulate these guys; just extend your hopes that the scars continue to heal.