August 2

Let the wild rumpus start! And so begins the Mardi Gras celebration that is Amylynn’s birthday. We surely hope you’ve prepared yourself. This is an expensive proposition, but it’s well worth it. Amylynn is a fabulous, fun person with few requirements in friends other than loyalty, wit, intelligence and the willingness to play along with her nonsense. She tries to make it easy on you. For example, she’s been telling everyone for years the way to ease the burden of her birthday prerequisites is to save a measly dollar a day from August 6 until August 4 the following year. Such a small amount certainly won’t crimp your style and would make $364.00 available for you to spend on her birthday present. She’s really a very reasonable person as you can see. To

This one is a bit crumbly. How much could it possibly cost?

make your job even easier she’s put together this handy dandy list of things she’d like for her birthday. And GO!

1. A castle. Amylynn has decided her lovely husband should get her a castle. It seems economies are tough all over and if the rate of defaults and foreclosures are any indication, there should be castles up for a steal. She’s really hoping for a haunted one. Something along the lines of a wailing lady in gray or maybe a headless knight roaming the halls. Scotland would be ideal, but in reality she’d go anywhere her new pile of rocks is located –

This one looks sturdy

Spain, Italy, basically anywhere in the Great Britian area. Even Switzerland if they promise to stock the place with firewood.

2. A real tiara. At the ripe old age of 44 Amylynn has decided that she’s not wearing anymore Target tiaras. She’s weary of the plastic that stabs her in the head and the rather dull aspect of the paste “jewels”, and she’s decided that Ava will pick out a nice one what with her having gone to jeweler school and all. If there’s anyone who’ll be able to carry off the wearing of a real honest to goodness tiara, it’s Amylynn. She’s already checked into the insurance required for such an item because she has enough self-awareness to know that it’s bound to bounce around on the pavment several times a week considering how often she falls down.

Zooooooom

3. A Jaguar F-Type. Amylynn remembers the time she taught Kurt to drive. It was a stick-shift so that was a very nice thing to do, don’t you think? She never yelled at him. What did she care? She was 16 and had no real understanding of how expensive a new transmission cost. Still he was too afraid to drive the car across busy streets so it did take a while to get anywhere with all the changing of drivers and such. Amylynn thinks that Kurt has surely saved up enough money in the 28 years they’ve known and loved each other that he can pick up a lovely Jaguar for

Ahhhhhh!

her birthday. She’d prefer a deep silver or a dark blue. Red is really so predictable.

4. A baby. There was an elephant born in the Fort Worth Zoo and Amylynn wants it and she thinks her mother and Aunt Debby should be willing to hop in a U-Haul and pick her up. The folks in charge over there named her Baby Belle and we think that’s just adorable. It should be relatively easy to get an elephant out of the zoo. You’re probably thinking the opposite, but you obviously haven’t put as much thought into this as we have. Pandas have a ton of security, it’s true, but no one thinks anyone would be crazy enough to steal anything as big as an elephant. That’s the genius of the plan. We are that crazy and we’re certain the rest of Amylynn’s family can pull it off as well.

5. Cake. Amylynn doesn’t care who exactly gets the cake so long as there is a lot of it and it shows up often. White cake. Red Velvet Cake. Yellow Betty Crocker cake with chocolate frosting. She’s not especially fond of German Chocolate but if it shows up, she’ll eat it.