If you want to witness one of the great tragicomedies of American culture, just visit any sort of office on any of its workers’ birthdays. On this loathed and sacred day, someone nice brings cupcakes, everyone sort of awkwardly sings, and then everyone sits around pretending like they’re not going to eat the cupcakes and talking about how they’re not going to eat the cupcakes, and then either giving in and eating them or staring at them hatefully while others eat them or shoving gum into their mouths so as to not eat them, or sometimes even — eating them proudly and with abandon. My co-worker Vera and I have birthdays two days apart, and because we are deeply aware of the feelings of our co-workers, we combined our cupcakes days into one. Perhaps every office should select one day of the year and just call it Birthday, and every person in the office can face-dive into vats of butter cream then take a group nap, as opposed to spreading the self restraint / gluttony bit by bit over the calendar.