3 to the 3rd power

I’m having a birthday on Saturday. This is the first time in eight years that I won’t have to drive at least several hours to be around my family for my day. Other than that, this birthday will be fairly unremarkable.

I’m sure that I’m not the only one who thinks about birthdays of years past when, inevitably, the time for another birthday swings around. I remember my fourth birthday. I remember getting a towel that had a fairy on it, and I thought it was fabulous (what a little Suzy Homemaker, eh?). I’m sure I got other presents, but that one sticks out, maybe because that towel stuck around for at least fifteen years. Another birthday I remember, and probably one of the last Big Birthdays in which the people having them actually enjoy, nay, seek out, celebrating, was the 21st. I was at St. Cloud State at the time, and my birthday was on a Saturday. It was a fun weekend…

Nope, birthdays just aren’t what they used to be.

At least, that’s what I thought, until I had a conversation with my brother.

We were chatting at the folks’ house this past weekend when he asked what the plans were for the birthday. The conversation devolved into my age, which will be 27.

“Ah!” Jer said. “Three cubed!”

Suddenly, my birthday became more than “just about thirty” or the age my mother was when she had me (scary, especially considering that she also had a four-year-old Jer by then, too). I will be three cubed. Two squared is four, too young to appreciate. Four to the fourth is… well, a lot (hey, math isn’t my strong suit, okay?), so I’ll be dead by the time that rolls around. But three cubed? I think I’m just old enough to appreciate that.