My wife and I have birthdays ten days apart. This year I decided to do something special to celebrate. Janey's was the previous Monday, mine the upcoming Thursday, so for this weekend between I developed a plan.

By the time I'd finished with the preparatory part I was feeling physically beaten. Hustling around town in all the Friday after-work traffic, and then the arrangements with the kids nearly fell apart. Man, I don't know. It was all set up that they'd be staying overnight at our friends' place. Their kids and ours get along fine, and we've had this reciprocal agreement for well over a year. If anything, we were owed a few sleepovers. I get there, they put up a stink, start hemming and hawing, and in the end ask for a baby-sitting fee. A stiff one. In cash. In advance. Some friends! I added to my mental lists. Tonight: hit the bank machine on the way home. Tomorrow: lose the friends.

My plan entailed either a nice dinner out, or else a nice dinner in. I had the cash in my wallet and the goods in the fridge. I'd leave it up to Janey what we'd have to eat. For dinner, that is. Dessert, well... I had this vague vision of donning our birthday suits and partying all night long. With no interruptions, or the hint or possibility of interruption.

We live in about the tiniest house imaginable. Any smaller and it'd be a pioneer cabin on the prairie. It seems fairly common that a couple's first child is regarded as a miracle of sorts. But I save that designation for our second one. I mean, the big miracle was that we ever managed to find the moment of privacy to mix together the vital ingredients. There was talk for awhile of having a third, but it never amounted to anything but talk.

By the time I got back from dropping the kids I was in a pretty sour mood. It would have been so much easier if my sister the super-Aunt had been able to take the kids. That was the original schedule, but then she'd begged off because of some last minute plans of her own. Shit, now I'd have to be getting up at dawn to get the kids before our friends sold them on the baby market.

Needless to say I was not happy to see the car parked in front of our house. That would be Sheila. What was she doing over? The thing about my sister is that she never just popped in for a minute. If she came in the door she stayed in the door for hours. Janey and Sheila can just yack and yack and yack.

I should be glad that the two of them are such fast friends, but that's always been a given. They're the same age, a year older than me, and they first met their freshman year in college. I'd heard great tales of Janey more than three years before I met her. Sheila brought her home for Thanksgiving their final year, and I just happened to be home from my university as well. Janey snuck into my room and jumped my bone the very first night, and I've been an addict ever since. It wasn't until after we were married that Janey let it slip that she'd been badgering Sheila on my account for quite awhile. So Sheila, is there another one like you at home, but with a dick. Oh my, he's cute. I think I'll take him! So much for all that nonsense about chance, fate and free will. Shooting fish in a barrel, that's how I was landed.

I get along great with Sheila. There's always a bit of that Bossy Older Sister Syndrome. And the confusion of growing up. First I was in love with her; she was the perfect idol. Then she turned into a yucky girl and I loathed her. Then she turned into a yummy girl and I entered a period of vague lust. Now that we're all grown up we have one of those rare sibling relationships. It's not the shared history and blood that binds us. I like hanging around with her because I genuinely like her.

Not that any of this made me any happier to see her sitting in my livingroom. Sitting and sitting in my livingroom. After a brief greeting, the two of them continued chatting away. As though I hadn't come in. They were hogging the sofa between them, which left me to sit in one of the uncomfortable chairs. Buy some comfortable chairs, I noted. I seized a pause in their conversation to say just that. "Hey Janey, how about we go out sometime and buy some chairs designed to be sat in?"

She graced me with a blank look, gave a quick shake of her head, then answered, "That sounds good, honey. Whatever you say, Ray. Whatever you want." And then they went on talking about other things. Well, what I wanted... had nothing really to do with chairs except as props. Anytime the talk veered towards a subject that might allow me to enter in with a comment, my comment was brushed aside and the conversation quickly steered elsewhere.

I sat around trying not to be too grim, but eventually I was fed up. I took to my feet and stood there for the longest time without being noticed. Eventually I poked Sheila's knee with the toe of my shoe.

"Hello! What are you doing here anyway? I thought you had plans for tonight."

"I do," Sheila spit back crisply.

Oh, I was in a pissy evil mood. "Oh yea? What? you gonna get laid or something?"

"As a matter of fact," she leveled a very cool gaze at me, "that's exactly what I intend to do. All in good time."

"What's your problem Ray?" Janey came to her defense. "If you're in a bad mood, why don't you stuff it in your pocket and go away."

I gave up. I shrugged and left the room, heading into the kitchen for a beer. There were some snorting sounds, and then peals of laughter behind my back.

I stormed off down into the basement to work on my project. Cellar is a more apt description of the space. It's squat and chilly and damp, but it's all mine. I have a workbench down there, with tools. I'm a woodworker, or a sculptor, or something. I don't have any artistic pretensions, I just need a title to define what I do. It involves a large hunk of tree trunk, like a chopping block, that was one of the deluxe features that came with the house. I never felt like summoning the strength or friends to help me lug it up the stairs and outside. Since then I've added to it. Scraps of boards, nails. Some artists use brushes or chisels. Me, I got a hammer. It's hard to say exactly what I'm making, or if it'll ever be finished. I have my doubts. Its purpose is pretty obvious. When I'm about to boil, I come down here and blow off steam. The therapeutic value of banging nails with a hammer. I envision the day when I stand back and see it as complete, and then I'll haul it up and mount it out in the yard. Already I've given it a title. "My Anger, Dispelled." Of course when I consider the likelihood of the day every arriving when everything in life makes me go kissy- kissy, the chances seem better that eventually I'll be dead and some poor realtor will have to deal with this nice little house with a nightmare in the basement. Too big to fit through the door, too heavy to lift, and impossible to dismantle. I use very serious nails, and slather the wood first with a real mean hide glue.

I went at it for about twenty minutes. Bang bang bam! Then I'd hear little female footfalls on the floorboards, chatter and laughter echoing in metallic haunts down through the ductwork. Bang bang BAM! A screech, a shriek, a chair being shifted. BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG bam. Murmurs in stereo, than a single piercing giggle. God damndamndamndamndamn DAMN! I wound up running out of scrap wood.

Though I wasn't any happier, all the tension had flowed down my arms and into my creation. I took a few steps back. Lookin' good! In the current stage it suggested a few possibilities to me. Birthday party time! I washed my hands in the little utility sink I'd managed to successfully install down there. From there I planned to go upstairs and straight out the front door, wordlessly. Take a small walk. Grab a decent bite on the way and wind up at Hed's, the only bar where all my real friends ever hang out.

I knew in advance how that would turn out. If I went to Hed's with a friend or two, we'd walk in the front door to discover that everyone in the universe I knew was there. The bartender would wave at me madly and have what I wanted ready before I got to the station. The jukebox would be playing exactly every song that I wanted to hear. I'd hardly dare to put a quarter in the pinball machines, because I'd wind up playing for half an hour off the one coin. All the atoms of tiny round tables would drift together as our crowd created a brand new element. There would be several intriguing people I'd never met so thrilled to meet me as I charmed them with my wit and intelligence. Beautiful women would stand up to refresh their drinks, turning first to ask if they could get me another.

When I went up alone, I would enter through the back door so I could have a clear view of everyone there. Invariably there would not be a familiar face in all the place. I would be virtually invisible to the bartender, who would be surly and forgetful. I could slip my life's savings into the jukebox and never hear a song I'd played. A game of pinball would be all three balls instantly gone through the gap between the flippers. I would remain Mr. Hydrogen, at my tiny table wherever in the room, sitting unbonded. Not only would no one talk to me, but no one would even glance my way. Between my second and third drink I would have the usual epiphany: why are you sitting drinking in a bar full of people you don't know? My standard recourse would be to have another round, deciding then to either finish up and leave or answer why not?

I was about to depart on what would certainly rise to the upper reaches of the list of my most dismal birthday celebrations. Just as I was turning to leave I was caught by the last piece of wood I'd hammered on. It stood straight out, pointing at me like an index finger. The stance was almost accusatory, but really there was something so kinetic about its placement that it seemed more like a nag frozen in mid-wag. Then the whole piece spoke to me. Duh, dumbfuck, you're going in the wrong door!

I nearly wept on the spot. It was the best present I'd ever received.

I took the stairs in bounds, stopped in the hall to grab a coat from the rack, then composed myself for the quick waltz through the livingroom to the front door.

I stepped in the room and froze. Janey and Sheila were basically where I'd left them. Janey had slid down the sofa a bit while Sheila was kneeling on the floor in front of her like she was tempting her with new shoes. But there weren't any shoes. The shoes were like the rest of their clothes, tossed and scattered around the room. The pair of them were absolutely naked, and Sheila's head was burrowed between Janey's wide-spread thighs.

Janey gave me a glazed sort of look, a big smile slurring the words, "Happy Birthday baby, whyn't you come join the party!"

Sheila looked up with a glistening face long enough to say, "We're just reliving the glory of our college days. Too bad you never visited. Janey's told me plenty about what a talented tongue you have."

With that she returned to Janey's crotch, while lifting her own rump higher, widening her thighs, and exposing the inflamed parts of her treasure nest. Her hands retreated from Janey's labia to her own, spreading her lips in imitation. In a narcotic whisper Janey crooned, "Help yourself, baby, it's an open invitation."