It was my 17th birthday in a couple of weeks and mum and dad had plann

It was my 17th birthday in a couple of weeks and mum and dad had planned a huge party, they did it every year not just because it was my birthday but they held a party every summer it just happened that my birthday was in the summer so they kind of joined the two together which was great as it meant no matter how old I was every year I had a party, unlike most of my friends who had one on their 16th then had to wait till their 18th for their next party or some of them their 21st depending on which birthday their parents felt was more important.

Last years party was great it was held the day before my 16th birthday and during the party dad came round the corner of the conservatory with a huge cake of course it had to be huge as we used to have over 100 people at the parties and my dad made sure that the cake was big enough for everyone to have a slice. My dad was a practical joker and whenever he could he would of course play a joke on someone and today it appeared to be my turn.

All the kids in the family surrounded the table while I blew out my 16 candles or should I say tried to blow out my 16 candles my dad had put those joke candles on it the ones that keep relighting everytime you blow them out, and as you can imagine after all the kids trying to help me blow the candles out the cake was of course covered in loads of kid spit ewww I thought to myself make a mental note not to eat the icing.

Dad took the cake back into the kitchen to cut it, he then enrolled the help of the kids to dish out the cake to everyone but came walking towards me with mine on a plate in his hand. He handed me my cake and said go on have a bite this cake was made especially for you. Trying to forget about all the kid spit on the icing I bit into the cake and ouch that hurt as I bit on something hard.

I took the cake out of my mouth to find a key in the cake, I looked at my dad bemused, just then I saw my brother out of the corner of my eye pushing a brand new scooter round the corner towards me, I looked at my dad then at the scooter and then back again at my dad, he at that point said "happy birthday love" I turned back to look at the scooter one last time before giving my dad a hug and bursting into tears. Every year we have to hire a skip after each party due to the amount of rubbish and empty bottles etc.

This year I over heard my parents discussing that they better be careful when throwing the rubbish in the skip this year just in case my present get thrown away.

The day of the party arrived and instead of handing me a piece of cake my dad handed me and envelope, inside it was a voucher for 20 driving lessons and a letter from the driving practice test centre, informing me that in 3 months time I had a date for my driving practice test. Oh my I was stunned I loved my parents to bits they were the best parents in the world and no wonder they were worried about the rubbish going in the skip as this year my present was paper but not just any paper it was my voucher and my driving practice test letter. Yet again I hugged my dad and burst into tears, he used to have a way of making me do that every birthday.