The Ghost of Birthdays Past

A long time ago, when I was single and living in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan, one of my acquaintances, David, was to celebrate a birthday. Of the things that David, a pastry chef, abhorred were ice cream cakes from Carvel. I don't know why, but there you go. Especially since, for those New Yorkers old enough to remember, Carvel had the loopiest and, for that reason, most enjoyable commercials on local television.

Anyway, for reasons that should be obvious, we decided to get David a Carvel ice cream cake. I recall it was "Fudgie the Whale". My friend Ben, who is now a reporter in Atlanta, was in charge of seeing that the cake carried the prosaic message, "Happy Birthday, David."

Now, I'm not sure from what nation the Carvel employee originally hailed from, but clearly it was from a culture where "David" was not a common name. Ben pronounced it for him, spelled it verbally, wrote it out on a piece of paper, re-pronounced it and, fifteen minutes later, the Carvel fellow exclaimed, "Oh, you mean Da-veed." We did indeed.

Two days later we picked up the cake, opened the box, and it read "Happy Birthday, Dadiv."

Now, I hadn't thought of this for about 26 years. That is, until I came home from work today and found this waiting for me:


My wife has both a great sense of humor and a long memory.