I Have the Lamest Birthday Ever — An Essay by Ellie Westley

This is a fun essay Ellie wrote when she got detention for using inappropriate language in her English class last year. The assignment was to write a standard 5oo word, five paragraph persuasive essay on a topic she felt strongly about. She got points for creativity. She didn’t get out of detention early.

I Have The Lamest Birthday Ever

An essay by Ellie Westley

There are a million, bazillion, gagillion reasons why it sucks to be born on the 4^th of July. I know because I’ve been suffering from such a lame birthday for sixteen years now. Sixteen long years of craptastic birthdays. I could write a novel on this subject, however, since this essay is only supposed to be 500 words, I’ll only give you the top three reasons why July fourth is the lamest birthday ever.

The first reason why my birthday sucks is the obvious: it’s in the middle of the summer. This blows because your friends are never around. Not that I’d ever want to be one of those pathetic suckers that have to carry a giant heap of balloons around school all day, but when all of your friends are off on cool vacations or at hockey camp, you’re forced to celebrate your birthdays with people like your parents and older sister. LAME. Also, because it’s a holiday, it’s the same thing every year—dinner and fireworks. Yippee.

The next bit of proof—and much more horrific than the first—that being born on Independence Day sucks, is that in honor of our blessed nation’s birthday you get named after prominent US patriots or leaders. I was named after the 34^th First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt. While I am grateful my parents weren’t cruel enough to name me George Washington Westley, and being named after Betsy Ross would have sucked harder, Eleanor is still a complete grandma name. Not cool. Plus, my friends all know who I was named after and like to call me Eleanor Roosevelt because it pisses me off. For this reason, I learned how to throw a proper punch by the time I was six.

The last—and by far the worst—reason my birthday is stupid, is that for some reason people think that because it’s the Fourth of July it’s cool to use sparklers in place of candles on your birthday cake. This is so not true. Aside from the fact that they leave behind a funky taste on the frosting—which is my favorite part of the cake—you cannot blow them out. Ever. If you don’t blow out all the candles, your wish doesn’t come true. That’s the rule. Do you realize what this means? It means that for as long as I can remember I’ve been gypped out of my birthday wishes! I so call BS on that crap! I’d better get some freaking real candles this year—sixteen of them—or I’m going postal on the world. I need my freaking wishes!

As you can see, my lack of birthday wishes, total grandma name, and absentee friends are all proof of how much my birthday sucks. Therefore it is only logical that I come to this one simple conclusion: I have the lamest birthday ever.