My “baby” turned fifty on Thursday. How could that possibly be?  Wasn’t I just fifty yesterday? We “celebrated” my fiftieth by leaving town on a little family vacation because I did not want to publicly announce that I had lived for half a century.

Well, my “baby” didn’t want to hide this milestone.  Instead, he invited friends from every phase of his life to participate in his Second Annual Zoom Clementine-Eating Contest.

Fifty-one people showed up. The youngest was about ten; the oldest was surely me.  And I had the honor of running the stopwatch as well as participating.

Each participant had to show on camera his/her unopened 3-lb bag of clementines.  After the signal by me, the first person to finish the entire bag would be the winner. Our winner ate his entire bag in slightly over five minutes. At that instant, having eaten six, I still had eleven clementines left in my bag. 

There was some post-competition chatter and an off-key rendering of Happy Birthday. 

Best birthday ever, according to Jeremy.