Picture Frame..

I was never really a fan of Birthdays. Not trying to be cynical or anything. It is just not my thing. In my opinion, it is just a cheesy way to gather people somewhere (in the good old days birthdays were normally held in homes, but not anymore) and embarrass them to get you gifts.
Even more, one gets invited to too many birthdays. This leaves you in perpetual confusion.
"So, who's birthday is it exactly on Friday?"
"Omar?? Omar who? Oh Rania's Fiancée..!!"
"Remind me again... Who's Rania exactly??"
And it just goes on and on.. and on.
For the sake of argument let us do the math. You have 15 family member (including kids) and 15 friends. Each of your friend on the average have a wife and a kid. By simple math this adds up to a minimum of 60 people. If only two thirds of them decide to celebrate their Birthdays you will end up with 40 Birthdays. That is more than 1 birthday every 10 days (and I am being very conservative with numbers.)

Then comes the issue of the birthday present. Get an expensive present then you are trying to show off. Get a simple present and you are cheap. Or get a gift voucher and then you are plainly lame.
Some people obviously found the ideal solution for this dilemma during my last birthday (for the record: I did not have a birthday party) However, these certain individuals decided to be nice to me anyway. So, I ended up getting 10 very similar gifts. I think by now you all have guessed it.... Right, Picture Frames.
This made me think a little. When someone gets you a picture frame, what is the message this conveys?
We do not know you that well
We had to get you a gift (God knows why..)
We do not really care whether or not you will actually use this present (a remote possibility in the age of digital photography)

However, after my initial mild frustration from getting 10 picture frames for my "special" day. It suddenly hit me. This is the perfect and most brilliant present anyone could get.
For the coming 10 birthdays, I will absolutely need not worry about what to buy as a present. Just give one of the frames. It does not matter if it's a boy or a girl, young or old. A frame would just do it. Especially, if you sneak in and just throw it in the middle of the other gifts without a card or anything that reveals your identity.
Then you'll go home and just imagine the Birthday boy/girl
"Who the hell brought me this Picture Frame??"

We koll sana wento taybeen...