Birthday Double-Team

It's a joint surprise party for the comic's two April birthdays, and David has a gift Paulo will never forget. Unfortunately, he also bought one for Chirpy, and he's not entirely sure which box ended up in which wrapping paper.

Birthday Double-Team
(Intermission)
Chapter	"37.1" of 127 (list of chapters)
Published	May 1, 2007 (2007-05-01)
Page count	2
Major characters	Paulo, Chirpy, David, Lucy
Minor characters	Sue
Collected in	Volume One, Omnibus 1
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Synopsis

Paulo and Chirpy get a shared surprise party, confetti and all. Chirpy is over the moon about it, having assumed everyone forgot her birthday entirely. In the kitchen, David badgers Lucy (in apron and chef's hat) and Sue with an endless chorus of "Can I", until Sue screams that he's allowed to hand out his gifts early if he'll just "GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN!!"

David hands boxes to both birthday kids, but Paulo's comes with a sales pitch. With an actual flash of lightning behind him, David promises something sweet, something spicy, something that'll "rock your world~ ♥". Paulo, red-faced and drooling, tears into the wrapping in a frenzy. Then he stares blankly at what's inside: a box of "Fluffy Love Chocolates", complete with a happy bunny on the lid.

Chirpy's pressie comes with some follow-up questions.

It doesn't take Paulo long to work out that David mixed up the presents. While Chirpy flies off to open her own "pressie", David cheerfully admits he also bought Paulo a magazine, though he doesn't really know where that went. The chocolates, it turns out, were meant for Chirpy. Paulo bolts across the room, but he's too late. Chirpy is already holding up a centerfold and asking, in complete innocence, "Is he hurting her?"

Sue and Lucy pick that exact moment to arrive with a huge two-tier cake, complete with a little cat and bird topper. Lucy spots Paulo shushing Chirpy and yanking the magazine out of her wings. She promptly drops her half of the cake (Sue is underneath it) and looms in for an explanation. Paulo babbles some cover story about forgetting to give Chirpy a birthday bash. Chirpy, helpful as ever, asks whether a "bash" is like this page about "Bashful Babes Baring--" and shows the centerfold to Lucy for reference. Lucy goes bright red, and Paulo is already out the door.

Trivia & observations

• Veronica's commentary explains why the parties got combined: Paulo and Chirpy both have April birthdays, with Chirpy's falling a few days before Paulo's, so she folded the two celebrations into one chapter rather than drawing two. That's also why poor Chirpy assumed everyone forgot.
• The same commentary starts to say the last birthday chapter was Lucy's, then remembers that David already has an entire chapter dedicated to his February birthday, Onwards to Adventure.
• Under the second page, Veronica mock-scolds David about the gift and insists "The spreads are of women holding hands, OKAY? >8(".
• Both pages went up on the same day, March 22nd 2010, and the chapter is numbered as intermission 37.1 rather than a full chapter.
• The chapter debuts two of Chirpy's nicknames: "Meanie-Kitty" for Paulo and "Boy-Doggie" for David. The Paulo one returns, respelled "Meany-Kitty", in Return.

Related chapters

• Lucy's Birthday: The previous birthday intermission, in which Paulo and David threw the surprise party for Lucy instead. That one also ended with chocolates at Paulo's expense, when Mike handed Lucy a heart-shaped box labeled "Paulo".
• Crash and Burn: Only one full chapter earlier, Lucy was frantically hiding a porn video from Yashy and Chirpy. This chapter runs the same gag again, and this time the pet sees everything.
• Yashy's Birthday: Lucy's other pet got the same treatment in her own intermission. Yashy spent that morning moping that her birthday was "Ignored, forgotten, cast aside.." right before the surprise cake came out.
• Flying Lessons: Chirpy's origin story, where Yashy rescues an abandoned egg and raises the hatchling in Lucy's household.