Halfway between your birthday and mine.
My mom’s best friend lived with us through most of my teenage years. It was the only time I knew my mom to have a real close friend, a ride-or-die, inside jokes, intolerable in company kind of friendship that we typically think dies out in adolescence. It didn’t— it ruled our house like an endless slumber party, to the point that a lot of folks thought the two of them were dating and simply wouldn’t own up to it.
They weren’t, but we went on plenty of family outings together. One of their favorite things was to go to Benihana (which they referred to in their twinspeak doubletalk as ‘ha-has’) as often as possible. We joined the birthday club with everybody’s date of birth, we went on weeknights and regularly closed the place down.
My mom was a Jehovah’s Witness and raised three kids who had never had or attended a birthday party. Naturally, they were all obsessed with birthdays. While the rest of us were focused on the onion volcano, immersed blissfully in the old days when the teppanyaki chef was still allowed to flip hot shrimps into our open and eager mouths, my youngest sister would always find an excuse to disappear.
Old enough to go to the ladies’ room on your own is old enough to make trouble. Dallas was famous for siccing the waitstaff at any welcoming establishment on one of us to stick a lit candle in something and get them to sing while we had to grin and bear it.
But one night, she outdid herself.
Entranced by the spinning egg trick, we all missed it when she spotted across the open dining room her aunt and uncle, seated at the end of one of the large group tables. When she returned, I half-expected the Japanese lyrics to “If You’re Happy and You Know It” to follow in her wake.
Not this time.
This time, she had spotted the unhappy couple (who were also Jehovah’s Witnesses) and made it one of their birthdays, instead. We saw their alarm as the singers approached, their warding-off gestures. We saw the wife cradle her face in her hands, waiting for it to end. Mom’s BFF laughed so hard I thought she might choke. As auntie, she bore no responsibility for my kid sister’s actions, and could enjoy the spectacle with us.
We saw the husband blow out the candle in the Buddha-belly-bowl full of green tea ice cream. We saw them see Dallas and split up: him angrily settling the bill, her headed our way.
“Sorry,” my mom said at once. “I raised a prankster. Dallas thinks it’s funny. It’s meant as a joke.”
Dallas was laughing hard behind her hand, unashamed.
My mother’s sister in law looked her in the eye and said: “Dave had just finished telling me he wants a divorce. Can I get a ride home?”
Somewhere in this week is her birthday and mine. We’re ten years apart, both of us pranksters like our mother before us. She knows better, now, than to surprise people with birthday singers. But I still kept an eye on her all through our joint birthday dinner.
You’re never too old to ruin someone’s night at ha-ha’s.