OH, THE BIRTHDAY HORROR

Generally speaking, I was pretty happy with where my birthday falls on the calendar. It heralds the end of school, summertime, the long-awaited return to camp. Even Jewishly, 6-13 was the total number of mitzvot (commandments) in the Torah. What was not to like? OK, so there was that occasional “Friday the 13th” problem, but that superstition never bothered me in any kind of concrete manner.

But today, I got a most unwelcome pre-birthday surprise that chilled me right to the bone. And it came in the most unlikely of places, from a source that I trust to bring me laughter and information—my copy of Entertainment Weekly.

After years of thinking no celebrity shared my birthday, I learned that I was sadly mistaken. The horror struck me like a bitch-slap across my poor, naïve, rapidly aging face. I looked at them, one blonde and one now-redheaded, but their faces the same, the living embodiment of the zodiac sign we shared, and shuddered—it was more terrible than I could have imagined, for the horror had been repeating itself, without my knowledge, for the past seventeen years...

The Olsen Twins share my birthday.

OH, THE BIRTHDAY HORROR

Generally speaking, I was pretty happy with where my birthday falls on the calendar. It heralds the end of school, summertime, the long-awaited return to camp. Even Jewishly, 6-13 was the total number of mitzvot (commandments) in the Torah. What was not to like? OK, so there was that occasional “Friday the 13th” problem, but that superstition never bothered me in any kind of concrete manner.

But today, I got a most unwelcome pre-birthday surprise that chilled me right to the bone. And it came in the most unlikely of places, from a source that I trust to bring me laughter and information—my copy of Entertainment Weekly.

After years of thinking no celebrity shared my birthday, I learned that I was sadly mistaken. The horror struck me like a bitch-slap across my poor, naïve, rapidly aging face. I looked at them, one blonde and one now-redheaded, but their faces the same, the living embodiment of the zodiac sign we shared, and shuddered—it was more terrible than I could have imagined, for the horror had been repeating itself, without my knowledge, for the past seventeen years...

The Olsen Twins share my birthday.