A Funny Barry Story

The first Friday of each month, my family gets together for dinner. My mom, sister, brother, nephew (when he can squeeze us into his schedule), three of my aunts, a few of my cousins and myself. That is only a fraction of the family, my mom is the youngest child of 15, so there are plenty of us around.

We change restaurants each month, but it is can be fun and interesting. You know when your family gets together at the holidays - well imagine that EVERY MONTH!

The decision was made to do it a few months ago, when my oldest aunt had a birthday. We said that we usually only all get together for funerals, so why don't we just do it without a sad event. So, the dinners started.

My birthday was the week of Thanksgiving, so my mom bought a birthday cake for me and had my platinum picture put on it. Well, when she was at the checkout, the cashier asked her who was on the cake, and she said her daughter and Barry Manilow. There was a lady behind her said "BARRY!" she ran around and looked at the cake with her arms flying in the air called out to her friend in the next line. "You have to come see this cake. It's Barry!"

My mom was standing there in totally shock, not knowing what to do except laugh. The lady looked at the cake again, she said, "oh my goodness, she's touching him!" she called out to her friend. "She touched him! she touched Barry!" Then she told my mom that she and her friend were Barry fanatics. Mom was like "okay." But she was thinking, "no kidding."

After her friend and a few others came over to see the cake, my mom was finally able to leave the store. She got a kick out of it though. When she told me, she was still cracking up. I told her, "he has that affect on people."

We have cut all around the picture, Mom said "we are going to have to cut it eventually." I told her to start on the body, leave the faces on as long as possible.