I don’t know what I did on my 13^th birthday. I can venture to guess, since it was the middle of August 1981, that I spent some time playing video games and some time hanging out by the pool.

If you had told me then that I could do pretty much the exact same things to celebrate 30 years later, I would have paid a pretty steep price to guarantee that.

In reality, I could think of nothing else I wanted to do when I turned 43 a couple of weeks ago. Since my birthday fell on a Sunday, everything lined up perfectly.

As the weekend approached, some people asked me if I wanted to do anything special. I had to find the right words to explain how playing Mario Kart with my daughter, trying to take down the pigs with my Angry Birds and sitting on my fanny by the pool qualified as special.

Some birthdays do call for a little bit of extra celebration. I threw a nice party for myself when I turned 40, grilling all kinds of meat and drinking beer with friends and family.

That kind of effort would seem out of place for 43, especially with the summer we have had. A number of family events and work commitments have kept us running around on plenty of weekends. The idea of keeping a low profile for the weekend spoke to me.

I didn’t even have the energy to grill up dinner for the family. I ended up choosing a relaxing dinner out to cap off the festivities.

That’s where things went downhill.

We had no problem with the meal itself. I stuffed my face, then treated everyone to ice cream. A few beers at a friends house would provide the perfect end to a summer weekend birthday.

Everyone agreed with the plan except my stomach. I finished one beer, opened my second, then recognized something had gone horribly wrong. Somehow, my insides had turned 63 instead of 43, and I didn’t feel too good.

I never thought I was going to get sick, but I knew I couldn’t hang out very long. I kept adjusting my sitting position hoping things would work out, but eventually I had to just head home. I knew I should have had an antacid before I left the house.

So I might have filled my birthday with the activities of a 13-year-old, but I wouldn’t even get close to a teenagers bedtime. Besides, I had to get up for work in the morning.

Once I got home, I took something for my stomach, turned the baseball game on the TV and crashed on the couch. I think I dozed off well before 9:30.

But as I lay there pondering the wisdom of piling beer on top of ice cream on top of Mexican food, I realized that an upset stomach couldn’t take away the fun I had playing games and reading by the pool earlier in the day.

I think I’ll try all of this again next year. I’ll probably skip the ice cream though. That seemed to be the killer.