Elliott's 30th Birthday Bash

Birthdays parties are a wonderful thing. Laughter fills the air, songs are sung...Elliott dry-heaves a half a dozen times off of the porch.

Okay, so some things aren't so pretty, but at the very least they're memorable!

Last night we celebrated a milestone in Elliott's life as he prepares to turn 30 on October 11th. A surprise party was cooked up by his family and was held at his older brother Marshall's house. About 30 of his closest friends and family were there, with the notable exception of his roommate Howard Kalin who left the same night for a 2-week vacation. (This did not go unmentioned by Elliott, but we'll get into that later.)

It was a really great time. Paula Schwartz once again proved she is an amazing cook, even bringing out her corn dip which took first prize during the Super Bowl Dip-Off. Paula also composed a song about Elliott turning 30 which she sang to the tune of "Traveling Man." After that we sang Happy Birthday and dug into probably the best birthday cake I have ever had.

I'm guessing it had an effect on everyone else too, because at that point, the party started raging. It was only about 9:30 by then, and thanks to John Ready's gift of a bottle of Old Granddad Whiskey, Elliott started his turn for the worst.

After most everyone left, Elliott needed some fresh air and went out to the back patio. He was incredibly hammered at this point. We all moved out there and were treated to a drunken Fuck Reggie Bush/Texas is still the National Champions/the Falcons will win the Super Bowl/Ohio State fucking sucks, tirade. With the exception of a few breaks for vomiting and dry-heaves, this continued for roughly 2 hours, all while Elliott was draped over the balcony. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard in my life. It was an Elliott none of us had ever seen before.

As you can imagine, there were some very memorable quotes, most of which contained very explicit language, so be warned. Among my favorites were: "Fuck Reggie Bush," (said at last count, 152 times), "Pam Anderson's aren't real, if you put silicone in mine, they'd look like that," "Fuck that sweater vest-wearing asshole," (in reference to Jim Tressel), and my absolute favorite, "I would never fuck a llama, that's gross."

Of course, while he was in his state of brutal honesty, we had to ask him about Howie missing his party. Elliott was not very happy about this, as we learned. I'll paraphrase here, but the discussion went something like this, "Fuck Howie." Okay, so it was really longer than that. It was also very confusing, as it went from "Fuck Howie" and Howie not being there for his birthday party, to how shitty Howie is for leaving the country when Ohio State is ranked #1 and Elliott would never do that, to how Texas is going to kick the shit out of Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, to how the Falcons are going to win the Super Bowl, to something about A-Rod and Derek Jeter being an item, and finally circling back to "Fuck Howie...but he's a really great friend."

My face hurt from laughing it was so hilarious. I just wish you all could have been there.

Happy birthday Elliott. And if you ever hear rumors about a video recording of your tirade, just remember, it wasn't my idea.