A Road Less Travelled

It all started the week before we moved into this house. (I told you it was a long story.) This was, of course, the week that we divided our time between madly scrambling to pack and madly scrambling to get the house ready to move into. I was tired, and probably would have been in a perpetual bad mood if I’d had the energy to keep it up–and if Gabrielle hadn’t been over nearly every day to help us work on the house. Toward the end of the week, as we scraped really gummy paper backing off our wood floors, I vented to Gabrielle about how I’d never had a real surprise party.

It didn’t occur to me that anyone else might have heard this conversation until several months later when Theresa walked into the room and said that it was time to plan my surprise party, because I’d never had a surprise party before. Somewhat amused I began mental preparations to plan my birthday party–until Seth said, “Yes, and I think we should keep it ambiguous as to whether we’re really throwing a surprise party or not.” Ha, that means you’re not because then I’d know…but if I know that you’re not then…but if… What if I went back in time and kidnapped my grandfather before the surprise party? Paradoxes are so mind-bending.

From the point on I made it my mission to make it impossible for them to throw a surprise party. I had it all figured out as to which days were available, the various methods they might use to get me out of the house, and what clues I was looking for. In the last week before my birthday I knew a surprise party was impossible. There was no way to fit it into the schedule, and I took a certain perverse pleasure in this.

Yes, I wanted a surprise party. The best way I can explain it is this–when I play a game I play to win, and I don’t count it as a win unless the other players are also playing to win. If they were going to surprise me it would not be because I closed my eyes and let them do it. They would have to really mean it in order to pull it off. They did.

Saturday we had Noah’s Hawaiian theme birthday party scheduled. As you might expect, I showed up in a Hawaiian Goth costume, complete with a black lei, purple crayon lipstick, and a ‘grass skirt’ made with strips of black and white floral print fabric. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the decorations as I walked in, but as we finished the greetings I began to notice several oddities in the luau decorations. For one thing, the balloons were in my chosen birthday colors of black and silver. There were roses on the table, along with burgundy (my third birthday color) tulle adorning the table and walls. Gabrielle was wearing black.

As I said, this was all distinctly odd, but I didn’t want to say anything. A few moments later I followed Gabrielle into the kitchen. She was going in to see if Crystal needed any help. At this point I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t be allowed to help, but I was ready to do a little fishing. In the kitchen they were making Reuben sandwiches, my chosen birthday meal. Uh-huh.

As I watched Theresa spread the sauerkraut she started laughing a little and commented how odd this was. She never answered my question as to exactly why this was odd. Instead Seth said, “Happy birthday, Raquel.”

Typing this out, it seems remarkably like some of the dreams that I have. Everything was just a shade off from reality and everyone else was acting like it was perfectly normal–and also wondering why I was being so dense, but I didn’t realize that at the time. I was so skeptical and so sure it was impossible that in the end I walked right into it. Somehow, that sounds about right for me.