“Everyone yelled “Surprise!””

It was my mom’s birthday. She was turning 60 and I wanted to do something for her. I knew she’d like a party. So I looked around, it was set to be in [name of city] and I was looking for a place that could cater because I figured it’d be a pretty big group, but I hadn’t been working for long so it had to be also cost effective. And I found a place, and it’s really cool because their catering compared to other places was very affordable, and then they actually allow you to bring in your own alcohol or other food. So like we brought in dessert from a place my mom really liked, and I think there was probably about 60 people or so, 50 people. But it was a total surprise party. So I think – I’m trying to remember, it’s been a little bit. I told her that a friend of mine who owns a Coney shop and has previously worked in a lot of really upscale kind of farm to table restaurants. I said something about how he’s hosting an event with like signature cocktails, so we’re gonna go. I think I told her the place. I said we’re going to [name of restaurant] which was one of her favorite places for breakfast. He’s renting it out for the night or there’s some event, basically. So on the day of her birthday, we go. I’d invited, obviously, my family, a lot of her friends. And we’re – I think we were getting ready to leave the house and my middle brother called or texted me and was like “Hey, like, we’re driving up from Cincinnati. We’re gonna be 20 minutes late. Can you stall?” and I was like, “No, you’re an idiot. Like, I can’t. This is already complicated enough. I’m just like waiting for her to figure it out. So no, I can’t come up with a different elaborate lie,” so I just told him he’d have to deal with not being there for the actual surprise. So everyone – I was worried like when we pulled up that we’d be seeing people that my mom knows walking around. So it was just really great. It worked out well, we didn’t run into anyone. We parked maybe a block or two away and then walked over. And everyone yelled, “Surprise!” And my mom burst into tears, which was sort of what I was going for.

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