America kept on trying to get me to go to her birthday party. She does this every year, but this time it got really weird. She sent reminder after reminder, over and over again, that it was going to be her birthday soon, like, months in advance.
“I’ve actually been celebrating for a while now, but I don’t think I’ve seen you at any of my parties?” she’d say to me, slurring her words.
“Oh, yeah, no, sorry,” I said. “I’ve been super busy.”
“But it’s my birthday. I’m two hundred and fifty.”
“Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.”
I thought maybe that would be the end of it, but she just wouldn’t let up. And she got more and more aggressive as the day approached. Last week, she wobbled over to me, completely out of her mind, mumbling something about how the news is saying it’s almost her birthday.
“They say it every day,” she shrieked, following me into a Chili’s Grill and Bar where she unhinged her jaw and ate a family of four.
“Did you just eat that family?” I asked.
“Big birthday comin’ up,” she said, letting out a huge belch.
“Girl, you’re nude in a Chili’s,” I told her. “You need to go to the hospital.”
Then she threw up dark sludge into a basket of tortilla chips.
I got out of there as fast as I could.
But later on, I saw her from my car, wobbling down the street and carrying a birthday cake. I stopped at a red light and tried to duck down, but she spotted me, shouted “HEY!,” and sprinted to my car as I quickly rolled up the window. The light was still red, though, and she managed to open the door to the back seat and get in.
“Uber for ’Merica?” she mumbled, strapping a seat belt around the cake. She then pulled a gun out of her purse, shot the cake, and passed out.
This is my chance, I thought. I could finally take her to the hospital and save the country.
When I pulled into the parking lot, she jolted awake and screamed, “WE’RE MISSING THE UFC FIGHT!” Panicked, she pulled out a bottle of peroxide from her purse and chugged it down in one gulp.
“LET’S GO DO CANNONBALLS IN THE REFLECTING POOL!” she screeched.
I managed to pull her from the car, but she grabbed onto the door, completely out of her mind, eyes rolling back into her head, shouting, “Big, big, big, big, big, big BIRTHDAY!” Somehow she pulled the door clean off (she’s very strong), and I dragged her, and the door, into the emergency room.
I approached the front desk. “There’s something wrong with this country.”
“What’s her date of birth?” asked the receptionist.
“7-4-1776,” America slurred.
“Oh, happy birthday!”
“Ohmygod—THANK YOU,” America said, barfing out more sludge.
A nurse took us into triage.
“Is she going to be okay?” I asked the nurse.
“No idea,” she said. The sound of fireworks started to boom outside.
America hocked up one last cough of sludge, stood up, and accidentally knocked me over with the car door. “Whoa, my bad,” she said. “Are you okay?” but she didn’t wait for an answer, distracted by the fireworks.
“IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!” she howled, throwing the car door at a glass door, shattering it. She then took off her pants and sprinted out of the hospital.
We watched as America ran into the explosive, stormy night. A firework went off at the same time as lightning struck, and the shadow of a tornado could be seen in the distance. She grabbed the gun out of her purse and started shooting at the fireworks.
“This isn’t normal, right?” I asked the nurse.
“I don’t know anymore,” she replied.
