Only Six Shopping Days Left

Until my Birthday!

Yes, they are adding another candle to my cake in a week and all the Party chairmen are pestering me for hints of what I want for a present. What, is 500,000 tons of fertilizer not good enough? My sock-puppet Ro wants to gift-wrap some defectors for me...if they were people I wanted, I would have fed them! What a tool.

Really, my birthday is not about me, but about the masses. Everybody gets a new pair of shoes. Maybe some Toblerones, too, if they are good Socialists. Even for the bad Socialists, I might reduce the sawdust to rice ratio in their gruel for the week.

This week, I have wrestled with the Succession issue. The Party elite intimate that this Birthday would be a splendid time for the announcement, but I am leaning toward waiting for the Big 65. I do not know why they are in such a hurry...what could happen in 2 years? Maybe, by then, one of my drudges for sons will have accomplished something worthy of my successor. I will not hold my breath.

Oh, one more thing...when wishing me Happy Birthday, you may use the familiar "saeng-il" for birthday. The honorific "saeng-shin" gives me the creeps now that I am fluent in English.