Happy Belated Birthday

For as long as I can recall there has been a stigma attached to late birthday greetings and we would make superhuman efforts to be on time with our wishes even going so far as to get that telephone call in by 11:59pm. Heaven forbid we "forget" to wish our nearest and dearest all that they deserve and expect to be wished on their special day. If we are by some ill stroke of luck, late, we are sure to have to endure at least one if not all of the following and then some: silent reproaches, phony toned "that's ok, so you forgot" or "birthdays aren't that important to me anyway" or how about the sad sack " I know how busy you are and so I NEVER expected you to find the time to call me" etc. etc. Anyway you slice it, none of the myriad of alternatives to being a punctual bday greeter are the slightest bit attractive yet as we age the excellent memory we were once so cavalier about is simply no longer evident when it comes to remembering certain important dates, in fact it seems that the first thing to fall away from our memory is the all important family/special friend birthday. We can certainly try the old calendar reminders but more often than not we fail to glance at our calendars so that isn't even close to foolproof. Today in the age where there is a plethora of electronics that beep and speak "important" messages we should be able to mask our ageing memories and come off looking like the true caring folks we are. It is adviseable that after the age of fifty, everyone should have a Blackberry or a reasonable facsimile thereof and there are already many provinces which offer partial funding for the gray haired group.. In fact there are even some insurance companies that promise premium rebates if the policy holders own one of these. They of course program in their payment schedules first, then you input the birthdays....