> Leen and I have made a pact that if we eat out anywhere on one of our birthdays, we do NOT let anybody know. We revere this pact with almost greater importance than our wedding vows. If one of us were to break it, it would give the other person permission to commit spousicide (along with the will to do so) without consequence. This pact was made just for the purpose of avoiding the nauseatingly cheery throngs of happy clapping singing waiting people. Definitely if anybody tried to tie balloons to any part of my body, they would find themselves transfixed through the throat by a Huge Knife.
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> The exception is Newick's, a very small, very local chain around the seacoast area of New Hampshire. The server will wish you a "Happy Birthday" in an even, well-modulated tone, and you get ten bucks off the total bill. This is the entirety of the restaurant's involvement in the celebration. Newick's gets a lot of business from us, not just on our birthdays but at other times, too, because they understand that eating out is not supposed to be humiliating.
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> S "could become indistinguishable from Stephen under adverse enough conditions" am

Every word of this post proved to me, once again, that although I obviously am different from Sam in numerous ways, our minds are as one when it comes to the IMPORTANT issues.

Brunnen-"we don't have that chain with the Huge Knives here, but I would be willing to supply my own if anybody forced me to have a restaurant birthday"G