HBD2BIL

Happy birthday to my wonderful brother-in-law and father to my children. Well, technically, they're not MY children but I love them more because I used to buy them candy on the sly when they were much younger because THAT'S WHAT UNCLES DO so keep your self-righteous judgey condemnation to yourselves, you judging judgeypantses. Where was I? Oh, yes: My brother-in-law has raised two decent, thoughtful, informed, involved kids (one of whom will bake chocolate-chip cookies at the drop of a hat and the other of whom will consume all of them if we don't lie and tell him they're up on the roof so he should go look there while we secretly (and maybe guiltily) eat all of them), obsessively power-washed his driveway on every day that ends in y, missed a few big sportsball games on occasion so the rest of us could watch musicals populated with frolicking men in ill-fitting tights as a family, and volunteered to climb the high, scary, pants-wetting ladder so I could stay safely close to the ground on the low, scary, pants-wetting ladder when we painted his house. Most importantly, he has always, without fail or even slightly crumbling resolve, shooed the entire family out of his kitchen so he could do all the dishes -- even after the 14-course state dinner we hosted for Angela Merkel just because we enjoy saying her name -- and thus saved me from having to do dishes, which I hate more than folding laundry or watching Donald Trump do that anus thing with his lips. So everybody call him at work today and sing Happy Birthday in whole notes so he can really savor the experience. And buy him gift cards from Michaels because that place gives him hives and I think if he could just buy some dried branches and styrofoam cones without using his own money, it could be like a gateway drug and he could conquer his fears and be making pipe-cleaner snowmen skating merrily on oddly shaped mirrored ponds by Christmas or maybe Epiphany for those of you at the end of the alphabet.