"Hey, love, how goes your birthday?"

"You remembered!"

It was 11 a.m. He was onto me. Shoot!

It's not like me to forget my husband's birthday. Birthdays are a very big deal in my world. I used to plan a week of events, starting with breakfast in bed. But here we were, in late morning, and I had only just remembered.

I considered the series of lies I could tell:

"They moved me at work to a place with no cell reception."

"How are you able to call me now?" he would ask.

"Oh, uh, I stepped outside," I would say, feeling that weird itch warning me I'm getting off too easily.

"Why couldn't you step out earlier?"

There it was, logic assaulting my lie. And then I would spiral.

"Baby, it's been crazy," I would say. "My boss needed all this work done, so they literally chained me to the desk. But I knew I had to call you, so I kicked at my wooden desk until it splintered. Used one of the wood fragments to pick the lock chaining me to the desk. Had to parkour past some armed guards and may have maimed a mime with a machine gun on my way out."

There would be silence on the other end.

"Was the mime too much?" I would ask. Mimes are always a dead giveaway I'm lying.

I should really consider fixating on another heavily made-up group of people. I think they come up so often because it is my subconscious telling me to stop talking! And to get caught in an invisible box.

I decided to be honest.

"I'm the worst. But I'll make it up to you tonight. We'll have a fantastic time."

I hadn't really forgotten his birthday. It was just a morning slip. Weeks ago, I had ordered his present, booked a baby sitter and made dinner reservations.

It was at an authentic Spanish restaurant we had never been to. Before ordering our first round of tapas, the waitress asked whether either of us had dietary restrictions. I mentioned that I am a pescetarian. The waitress enthusiastically told me not to worry. There were plenty of dishes for people who eat no meat other than seafood. She made a few recommendations, which we promptly ordered.

After our olives, cheeses, nuts and bread were consumed, our first real dishes were brought to the table.

A few bites in to my cuttlefish and lentil medley, I told my husband that I thought there was a possibility I was eating sausage. He dismissed my fears; the waitress wouldn't suggest a meal with sausage when she knew I only eat seafood.

He was probably right. The taste wasn't strong. I probably was just reacting to the texture, and there were a lot of strange textures in that dish. But after a few more bites, I insisted my husband try a bite.

His mouth dropped. "Uh-oh, baby."

I pushed the dish away from me, willing myself not to get sick.

We called over the waitress.

"I'm a pescetarian," I said. "And this has sausage in it."

"It doesn't have sausage," she replied. "It has ham."

I thought about that moment in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" when the entire Greek side of the family gasps at learning that John Corbett's character's family members are vegetarians, only to have a Greek aunt break the ice by saying, "It's OK. I make lamb."

I really didn't want to get sick. Not on my husband's birthday. We never get a baby sitter. We never go out. This was special. But within 20 minutes of the end of the meal, I found myself pacing on the sidewalk, waiting for my husband to bring the car around and vomiting in a gutter as if I were back in college. Even if the cause is food poisoning, once you're in your 30s, there is no excuse for throwing up in the street. Across from me was a long line of 20-somethings waiting in line at some club, looking my direction with pity and embarrassment in their eyes.

My husband ran into the restaurant to get me a barf bag. They gave him a paper to-go bag, which disintegrated from my stomach acid as I filled it with sausage. I mean ham.

My husband spent the rest of the evening cleaning puke off his car's passenger seat.

On the plus side, I'm pretty sure that at this point, he's forgotten the part when I didn't remember his birthday.

Like Katiedid Langrock on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/katiedidhumor. Check out her column at http://didionsbible.com. To find out more about Katiedid Langrock and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.