Can you keep a secret?

For Sunday, August 3, 2008



My wife is turning 60 this October and I’m planning a big surprise party for her. Our children will lure her out of the house for the day, while I stay at home and welcome all the guests. We will all be hiding down in the garage, so we must make sure she doesn’t come in that way. The children will guide her up to the front door. Once she’s inside, we’ll come streaming up the steps one at a time, shouting “Surprise!”
Shhhh. Don’t mention it.
Actually, my daughter, Kristi, wanted to throw the surprise party. I was against it. I figured if someone is turning over a new decade, and there is no mention of a birthday celebration, they’re going to be suspicious. They’ll know right away someone is planning a surprise party.
I figured I’d let Susan in on the secret, in case she had some preferences we hadn’t considered. Maybe she’d want a certain dish cooked; maybe she’d want me to fire up the barbecue; perhaps she’d like to help plan the guest list; possibly she’d prefer to have the party downstairs in the family room instead of upstairs in the living room.
So, I said, “Honey, your big birthday is coming up. It deserved a huge party. What are your thoughts? What do want to have happen on that day?”
She said, “I want to go to Mexico on a seven-day cruise.” There was no hesitation in her voice. No hem. No Haw. No either or.
“Whoa. Oh. OK, eh, sure. If that’s what you want, baby, that’s what we’ll do. Royal Caribbean, here we come again.” Maybe the surprise party wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Honestly, I’m happy to take her back to Mexico. There’s nothing more fun than being pampered aboard a pleasure cruiser, and she deserves the pampering.
“This trip, I don’t want to even get off the boat at the ports of call,” she said. “Why trudge all over town in the heat and pay for food and listen to pitches to buy time shares when we can lounge on the sundeck with no crowds and eat for free?”
“I’m with you, baby. I don’t want to march through Mazatlan again. Maybe we’ll leave the ship in Cabo, though, eh? It’s a small, fun town. What do you think?”
“OK. We’ll do Cabo. But beyond that it’s…” She snaps her fingers in gesture “…oh, waiter! Over here please. Would you refresh my umbrella drink, por favor?”
I guess that’s why I dig the chick so much. She’s never lost her spirit for revelry.
Ten years ago we got off light. All she wanted to do was walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. That was her long-term wish. Of course, she didn’t realize that she would also have to walk back across the bridge to get to the car. That realization came as we reached the parking lot.
She deserves more than just a party and a Mexican holiday. I need to plan a few other surprises as well, things I don’t even know about yet.
This woman has put up with me for over 20 years. I’ve dragged her all over the country, sleeping on hard ground down rocky roads. Took her to rural PA for our wedding. We got married by a Free Methodist because no one else would marry us, her being a divorcee, and had our reception in the Grange Hall, that we rented for $35. The main course was venison. Guests came in jeans and flannel and drank whiskey out of the trunks of their cars. It was like the wedding in the movie Deer Hunter. On our wedding night, we slept on my niece Wendy’s single bed, a thin, sagging mattress on a flat spring frame, with my legs hanging off the end up to my calves. My four nieces, sister and brother-in-law were sleeping in the other bedrooms on the far sides of the thin plaster walls, trying their best not to listen. Creak. Creak.
On her 40th birthday I planned a total fiasco. I rented the Burlington Hotel in Port Costa, sight unseen. I didn’t know it had vines growing in through the windows, chickens in the lobby, springs and spines protruding from the furniture, frayed carpets, a chandelier hanging only from its light cord, a speed-limit sign stuffed under the couch, and the funky aroma of decaying fabric. To this eccentric haven I invited many of her life-long friends, accomplished folks from all walks of life. “Meet my husband,” she said.
The true beauty of this plan, and this published confession, is that now I can plot a surprise party and she’ll never suspect it. She’ll think her birthday plans are in the bag. So, maybe she’ll get a surprise party, and maybe she won’t. One never knows, does one?