About a decade ago, chronovius and I went to TGIFridays for his birthday dinner. As was our wont, we decided what we were going to have, put down our menus, pulled out our PDAs and continued reading whatever books we had in ebook format. Our waitress hadn't seen palm hardware before, and so we cheerfully showed her what we were doing, and I let her look at the screen on mine... after I wrote out a quick note that it was Chrono's birthday and could she please do the birthday foo-ferraw after we ate (on the PDA screen)? She grinned and nodded, and we enjoyed a delightful dinner, and Chrono was careful to watch that I didn't sneak off to organise some manner of natal day frivolity. He was genuinely surprised when the staff came over to sing him happy birthday, and the waitress was crowing about how the info was passed along. To this day, he chuckles when he recalls that.

"Sometimes, the oddest things well up in your memory."

::nods::

And at its best moments that what makes life interesting.

Aww! :D When I was in college, I went out to dinner with my roommate and her boyfriend. We decided to prank the boyfriend (who I was good friends with anyway) and tell the waitress it was his birthday when it was not. I trotted off "to the lady's room" and grabbed our waitress. She apologized told me they don't do that anymore (and since then it seems like more and more places don't either).

But at the end of the meal she wrote a huge "Happy Birthday" with a giant smiley face on our check. The befuddled look on his face was worth it anyway, and he had a laugh when I told him what I'd done. :)