The Birthday Remix

Most birthday cards in Japan have a sound mechanism that plays ‘Happy Birthday to You’ when you push a button. They are cute and nice and you unique of course, except when the song haunts you. I returned home from school one day to the sounds of the ‘Happy Birthday’ song beeping throughout my house. I looked every where for the source of this song. I looked in folders, closets, and outside only to find the noise was coming from the garbage. The burnable garbage to be precise. I started my quest to find the card and shut it up. I dug through chicken skins, banana peels, ice cream cartons and salad remains. I held garbage up to my ear to try to figure out where the card was. After about 5 minutes I gave up. My hands were sticky and smelly and the noise was driving me crazy. I finally decided to solve the problem by taking the trash out.

I took the trash out on a Tuesday evening. I figured the battery would die and I would be rid of the ‘Happy Birthday’ song. I was wrong. I woke up the next morning to the twinkle beeping of ‘…Happy Birthday Dear Sarah, Happy Birthday to you…’ Wednesday I went to school hoping the battery would die. After school I returned home and it was still singing loud and proud. Then I went out for the evening Wednesday night. There is no stopping this singing card. Finally, I woke on Thursday morning to the ‘Happy Birthday’ song and it is trash day. I proudly put my garbage can on the stoop to no longer listen to the joyful song. (PS…to you people living in Japan, I just accidentally spelled Joyful with 2 L’s…) Now I am only hoping the garbage man will take away the singing card and not think “The Happy Birthday song isn’t burnable gomi (trash)”.