the greatest birthday present of all time

I’m notoriously difficult to shop for. Not that I don’t give people ideas when gift-giving times roll around. But the things I want aren’t usually the sort of thing you want to run out and get professionally wrapped.

“Hm, Christmas already, you say? Well, I lost my tweezers a few months ago, so I could use another pair. Um, I eat a lot of cereal. I’m running low on paper towels?”

I’m one of the most easily delighted human beings on the planet, and I try to be concretely aware of just exactly why I love the people I love, every day. So when it comes to tangible tokens of that love, I’m a “buy me what I need” kind of girl. My favorite presents ever? A tie between a luggage set my parents gave me when I turned eighteen (and still use to this day) and the pairs of Rainbow flipflops that my nearest and dearest seem to keep buying me as my old ones start to embarrass them in public.

HOWEVER! My twenty-fifth birthday is coming up on July 24, and this year I’ve thought of a sheer-decadence present that would please me more than anything I’ve wanted in my entire life. (Except my Creepy Crawlers set when I was eight. Thanks, mom and dad!)

And the best part: it’s completely free. No shipping costs or anything. Genius, right?

This birthday, I want everyone I love (or like or admire or have ever gotten ice cream with) to record a message from their Five-Years-From-Now Selves to Past Kat, telling me something that’s going on in the year 2016. I’ll listen to them once, on my birthday, then burn them all onto one audio track that I’ll send to a friend for safekeeping, to time capsule until my 30th birthday, when I’ll play them again for maximum hilarity slash poignance.

Doesn’t that sound fun?

“Dear Past Kat, today I hoverboarded to the galactic-store to buy rocket fuel and organic peanut butter. Everything’s fair trade now! It’s crazy! Come join us!”

“Dear Past Kat, I’ve got to admit, things have been a lot more efficient since the robots triumphed in the inevitable Cyborg v. Human Uprising of 2013. Plus, now I can legally marry my waffle-maker.”

“Dear Past Kat, man, get with the program. Nobody says ‘dude’ in 2016. We all call each other ‘brigadier.’ Briiiiiiiig.”

How fun would fifty or so messages of that be?! I might be getting a little choked up thinking about it. But am mostly grinning my biggest dinosaur-hunter grin, imagining all the brilliant, hilarious snapshots of my favorite people I’ll be able to carry with me from year to year.

It’s all of my favorite things: visions of the future from the past; unbridled youthful exuberance; a moderate vein of narcissism; something I will never have to pack up and move cross-country. In fact, this is what I want for every holiday ever, now. You’re welcome, everybody! I will never ask you to buy me tweezers again.

What would five-years-from-now you tell yourself on a milestone birthday? How crazy’s 2016 going to get, y’all?

Tagged as: exaggeration alert: i've loved many quirky and thoughtful gifts over the years. web comic artwork! monogrammed cocktail glasses! vintage cookbooks! but the luggage set was seriously clutch., gettin' a little misty about moving (obviously), i try to make my friends do stuff like this all the time. i don't know why they put up with me., i'm imagining everyone sending just radio silence. on account of the world ending in 2012 and all., if you want to record one and email it to me i'll be immensely and permanently touched, retrofuturism is my jam y'all, zany hijinx