As birthdays go, this one really stunk

It was Diane Makar Murphy's birthday. Since becoming columnists at the paper, Diane and I have been good friends. We've never made a big deal out of our birthdays, but this year we decided to get together for lunch since Diane was turning the ripe age of 48.
She had no idea how "ripe" 48 could be.
Diane had just written a column titled, "There's no big deal about 48."
"Turning 48 doesn't mean anything," she wrote in her column. "No one has ever put these words on the front of a birthday card: 'So you're 48!' And the reason is simple. Forty-eight is without characteristics."
Not Diane's 48th. Thanks to our luncheon, 48 is a birthday Diane will never forget -- no matter how much she would like to.
Here's what happened
We met at one of our favorite restaurants, and I presented her with a card, "For a special girl at 4" and I added an 8 to that number. It had a dot to dot inside. "Who says they don't make cards for 48?" I beamed.
I also gave her a beautiful bouquet of flowers I had picked up at a local florist that is attached to a grocery store. (This will be relevant later.)
We decided to eat at a different restaurant down the road.
"Sounds great," I said when she suggested the change of venue. "But I think the kids left some sort of old food in my car. It smells like dead fish."
"I'll drive," Diane said.
We no sooner pulled out of the parking lot when I exclaimed in horror, "Oh my gosh! It's not my car that smells. It's me!"
"Yes, it is!" Diane said holding her nose. "You stink!"
I was horrified. I began pulling at my clothes and sniffing. "It must be my pants," I said frantically. "The dogs go down to the lake and roll in dead fish. (Dogs are so gross!) They must have rubbed against my pant leg."
"You're getting a new pair of pants!" Diane insisted.
Department store
We turned around and drove to the nearest department store.
'Didn't you smell that when you put your pants on?" Diane yelled with her head hanging outside her window, trying not to breathe too much interior air.
"No!" I answered from outside my window.
After several trips to the dressing room at the department store, I finally found a pair of capris that fit.
"I need to wear these pants right now," I explained to the girl working in the dressing room. She looked at me warily. I took a deep breath and began, "It's her birthday. She's 48," I was going for the sympathy nod, but the clerk was stone faced. "We were on our way to lunch when we smelled something like dead fish. It's my pants. We live by a lake, and my dogs go down to the lake and roll in dead fish. They must have rubbed up against my pants."
Still stone faced with an added hint of disgust, the girl picked up the phone and called an associate to the dressing room.
"She'll escort you to the checkout counter," the girl told us, no doubt hoping I would take my smelly pants and leave.
On the way to the checkout, I again explained my story to this unsuspecting soul who, in turn, shared it with the woman at the counter.
Completely humiliated, Diane and I wrapped my smelly pants in a bag and left.
Back in the car, the horror continued.
Still smelled
"I still smell!" I screamed.
"Yes you do!" Diane screamed back.
I took my shoes off and hung them out the window. Back to the store we went.
We ate our lunch with my smelly pants and shoes sitting underneath Diane's car.
"How about skunk next year?" I joked, as Diane dropped me and my stench-laden bags off at my car.
"I think I could stand skunk," she said before she peeled out of the parking lot.
At home, Diane laid her 4"8" birthday card on the counter and put the flowers in a vase.
Later that night, Diane turned to her daughter, "I think those flowers stink."
Hannah responded, "Well, I didn't want to say anything. ..."
gwhite@vindy.com