Tradition schmadition

I have been quaking in my flip flops for the past few days in anticipation of the Dutch Office Birthday Ritual. I am not a huge fan of being the centre of attention for anything at work other than my mad co-ordinating skillz, so the thought of having to stand in the middle of a circle of people I mostly half-know and be repeatedly kissed (right cheek/left cheek/right cheek) and have songs sung about me in multiple languages makes me want to curl up in a small ball behind all the Madagascar soft toys under my desk. To make matters worse, some longstanding Dutch tradition dictates that the birthdayee buys his/her own cake, so I get to organise and pay for my annual mortification. Woohoo.

This year's ordeal finished minutes ago, and amazingly I only spent about half of it wanting to be magically transported out of the room and off to self-employment land where I can buy myself cake and sing Happy Birthday To Me every day of the week. The rest of the longest quarter of an hour ever was divided between wondering what's going on with my job as the guy who gave me my card isn't my boss yet but may be my boss but is he my boss? and shovelling large forkfuls of appelkruimelvlaai (that's apple crumble custard cake) into my mouth whilst maintaining an idiotic/appreciative grin. I really don't know what it is about these forced public displays that turns me into a gibbering wreck. I mean, it's not like I'm attention-shy outside of work!

Oh well. Roll on next year... in the meantime, it's time for another slice of cake.