John Price's 40th Birthday: A Disaster in Stuffed Plush and Bad Decisions
It was the big day. John Price, professional manchild, was turning the big 4-0. For most, it’s a time of reflection—embracing maturity and wisdom. For John, it meant one thing: the party of the century, planned with the reckless abandon of someone who had no idea what not to do.
John had invited the entire gang from the Useless Thread, his favorite online haunt. They were a ragtag bunch, mostly strangers bonded over their shared love for arguing about meaningless topics. What better way to celebrate than to meet in person and take them all to Nashville, a city John had never been to but assumed was the best place for a party? Spoiler: he was wrong.
The venue was a dive bar that smelled like old beer and questionable decisions. John arrived in his signature backwards cap and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt, reeking of confidence and something else no one could quite place. The room was sparsely decorated, with a few sad, deflated balloons hovering around the edges. It didn’t matter—John had something special planned.
At the center of the room sat the pièce de résistance: a giant, gaudy birthday cake, towering three tiers high and decorated with neon icing. John had told everyone that he had a surprise inside it, but no one could have predicted what was coming.
At the stroke of midnight, John made an over-the-top gesture and yelled, “Let the fun begin!” Music blared, and the cake began to wobble as if it had a life of its own. Suddenly, the top tier exploded with a confetti burst, and out popped—of all things—his collection of beloved stuffed animals. They tumbled out of the cake like clowns from a tiny car, limbs flopping in all directions.
“Yes! My stuffies!” John screamed with glee, clapping his hands like a five-year-old. The entire Useless Thread crowd exchanged confused glances. Was this for real? Oh, it was.
The stuffed animals were many: from deranged-looking teddy bears to odd creatures no one could name. John paraded them around, introducing them like they were long-lost friends. “This one is Baxter, he’s been with me since third grade!” he announced proudly, shoving a worn-out plush lion into someone’s face. "And here’s Dinkles!"
The party was already off to a weird start, but John wasn’t done. He had planned a bar crawl through Nashville. Of course, the problem was that John, though 40 in years, had the drinking tolerance of a college freshman. His drink of choice for the night? Millerade—a combination of Miller Lite and lemonade that he swore by for its "perfect balance of flavor."
Three sips in, John was already feeling tipsy. By the time they reached the second bar on the crawl, he was fully in his zone. Dancing like a madman, arms flailing, trying to get people to join him in an impromptu rendition of Cotton-Eyed Joe on the sticky floor of a bar that hadn’t seen a mop since 1998.
By the third stop, the inevitable happened. John slurred something about needing to sit down and plopped onto a curb outside. He stared at the bright Nashville lights with a blissful, dopey grin, before declaring, “I love you guys!” to the random strangers passing by.
Unfortunately, his behavior didn’t go unnoticed. A nearby cop, already suspicious of the erratic dancing, saw John’s crumpled figure and slurred speech as a textbook case of public intoxication. As John attempted to stand, he promptly fell back onto the curb, his Millerade sloshing onto the street. The cop approached.
“Sir, you alright there?”
John, ever the talker, grinned at the officer. “I’m fiiiiiiine, my dude! Just celebrating my birthday with my thread! Wanna meet Baxter?”
It wasn’t long before the handcuffs were out.
“I’m sorry, what did I do wrong?” John protested as he was hauled to his feet.
“You’re drunk and disorderly in public. Let’s go.”
The Useless Thread gang watched in disbelief, half in shock, half embarrassed, as John was loaded into the back of the police car. His cake-stained Hawaiian shirt fluttered in the night breeze. The stuffed animals, meanwhile, were scattered on the sidewalk, a surreal sight under the neon lights of Broadway.
As the cop car drove away, someone from the group muttered, “Well, that went about as expected.”
The next morning, John woke up in a holding cell with the world’s worst headache and a vague memory of dancing with his stuffies. His only companion in the cell? A discarded Millerade can.
“Well,” he groaned to no one in particular, “that escalated quickly.”
It was a birthday he’d never forget—nor would anyone else who had the misfortune of attending.