win-WINNA!
Lalala. Je suis une genius avec les grandes abilities to fool people! Muahaha!
So, I've been wanting to write about the progress of planning a surprise birthday party for my dear friend Paul for a while now, but obviously couldn't because he reads this and IT'S WAS A SURPRISE!
Zeebs and I got off to a rocky start. After kidnapping his phone at a Second Cup, Zeebs attempted to copy down all the names and numbers in his phonebook whilst I distracted him and chatted merrily about topics unrelated to his phone so he wouldn't notice it was missing. Unfortunately, being the smart guy that he is, he did clue in after like 45 minutes that Zeebs was taking a suspiciously long crap in the washroom and that his phone was missing... so he started asking questions, which I skillfully avoided by changing the topic and completely ignoring him: not smooth.
So, it's a week before the planned event, and Paul is completely suspecting us. Zeebs and I are calling all of his friends (95% of whom we've never met) and leaving ridiculously stalkerish messages on their voicemails (because many of them are avoiding our calls due to a wonderful new invention called caller I.D.) My templated message went something like this:
"Hi, this is Dunja calling. Um, you don't know me, but, um, I'm Paul's friend. Uh, Paul (last name here)? And uh, it's his birthday this Friday, and we want to have a surprise party for him, uh, my friend and I, and we're just inviting all the people we found in his phonebook - uh, that's where I got your number - from Paul's cellphone phone book. So anyway, if you can come, it's at Crocodile Rock at 8pm, and you should call me back, um, to let me know if you have any questions, and whether you're coming or not. So yeah. Hope to see you there."
Some folks call back and we get some confirmations. Things seem to be going great, until our Crocodile Rock plan is completely shattered because we realize that it's 25 and over night on Saturdays at Croc Rock, that we can't get a reservation, and that half the people coming won't be able to get in because of dress code. So now we have to change the location, which means calling everyone back and leaving a whole slew of new messages - a day before the party. Somehow, we also have to do damage control, because at this point our mole (a.k.a. J-dawg) has let us know that Paul is completely on to us. We decide that Mahziba will pretend to cancel because she has to cover someone's shift at work, and I'm expected to pull of an amazing dramatic routine, call Paul pretending to be upset, and somehow work in there that we should still go out despite the fact that Zeebs has cancelled - and she was the drama major for 4 years. I must say, I was nervous, and this call was deeply nerve-wrecking. Paul kept me on my toes, but it all somehow worked out.
The final cherry on the damage control cake was bringing my friend along last minute, because it served to throw Paul off. At the time of the surprising, according to Paul, he suspected *something* but wouldn't have said anything because he was a tad bit fearful that nothing was in fact going to happen, and him bringing it up would make him look like an ass if there was nothing happening. So we succeeded in keeping him ambivalent about the situation. I think that's a good thing given the hours of interrogation Zeebs put him through about who his "good friends" were, (randomly - for no conceivable reason other than that she was planning a surprise party and didn't know who to invite - the only way she could've been more obvious about it was if she pulled out the list of names and started scratching people off of it as Paul went down it...), and the fact that I almost lost control of the situation on several occasions (like when Paul asked me why we were going to Indian Motorcycle, and I told him it was 'cause my friend had recommended it, and she said "I've never been anywhere in Toronto." I had to mask her words with a laughing fit and give her meaningful looks until she got the hint to STOP TALKING.) Despite all these close calls, Paul seemed happy to see people he hadn't expected to see, and seemed grateful for the effort we'd put in (even though the outcome was less than ideal since half the party was later showing up than the birthday boy they were supposed to be surprising. Sigh.)
However, even though the *surprise* part of the party was a bit of a flop, the party in and of itself was OFF THE HOOK! We managed to get Paul COMPLETELY and UTTERLY drunk off his ass - to the point where he wasn't walking straight and kept veering towards the bar on the way to the dancefloor, to the point where he was completely red in the face, to the point where he was laughing at EVERYTHING and not saying much. Soooo drunk. And he says that from what he can remember, he had an awesome time. The same can be said of the rest of us. (Except for Zeebs who was playing D.D. and keeper of the psychopaths.) I want to put pictures up, but if it proves to be a pain, as things do, I might give up. I'll let you know what the final verdict on that is later.
So, I've been wanting to write about the progress of planning a surprise birthday party for my dear friend Paul for a while now, but obviously couldn't because he reads this and IT'S WAS A SURPRISE!
Zeebs and I got off to a rocky start. After kidnapping his phone at a Second Cup, Zeebs attempted to copy down all the names and numbers in his phonebook whilst I distracted him and chatted merrily about topics unrelated to his phone so he wouldn't notice it was missing. Unfortunately, being the smart guy that he is, he did clue in after like 45 minutes that Zeebs was taking a suspiciously long crap in the washroom and that his phone was missing... so he started asking questions, which I skillfully avoided by changing the topic and completely ignoring him: not smooth.
So, it's a week before the planned event, and Paul is completely suspecting us. Zeebs and I are calling all of his friends (95% of whom we've never met) and leaving ridiculously stalkerish messages on their voicemails (because many of them are avoiding our calls due to a wonderful new invention called caller I.D.) My templated message went something like this:
"Hi, this is Dunja calling. Um, you don't know me, but, um, I'm Paul's friend. Uh, Paul (last name here)? And uh, it's his birthday this Friday, and we want to have a surprise party for him, uh, my friend and I, and we're just inviting all the people we found in his phonebook - uh, that's where I got your number - from Paul's cellphone phone book. So anyway, if you can come, it's at Crocodile Rock at 8pm, and you should call me back, um, to let me know if you have any questions, and whether you're coming or not. So yeah. Hope to see you there."
Some folks call back and we get some confirmations. Things seem to be going great, until our Crocodile Rock plan is completely shattered because we realize that it's 25 and over night on Saturdays at Croc Rock, that we can't get a reservation, and that half the people coming won't be able to get in because of dress code. So now we have to change the location, which means calling everyone back and leaving a whole slew of new messages - a day before the party. Somehow, we also have to do damage control, because at this point our mole (a.k.a. J-dawg) has let us know that Paul is completely on to us. We decide that Mahziba will pretend to cancel because she has to cover someone's shift at work, and I'm expected to pull of an amazing dramatic routine, call Paul pretending to be upset, and somehow work in there that we should still go out despite the fact that Zeebs has cancelled - and she was the drama major for 4 years. I must say, I was nervous, and this call was deeply nerve-wrecking. Paul kept me on my toes, but it all somehow worked out.
The final cherry on the damage control cake was bringing my friend along last minute, because it served to throw Paul off. At the time of the surprising, according to Paul, he suspected *something* but wouldn't have said anything because he was a tad bit fearful that nothing was in fact going to happen, and him bringing it up would make him look like an ass if there was nothing happening. So we succeeded in keeping him ambivalent about the situation. I think that's a good thing given the hours of interrogation Zeebs put him through about who his "good friends" were, (randomly - for no conceivable reason other than that she was planning a surprise party and didn't know who to invite - the only way she could've been more obvious about it was if she pulled out the list of names and started scratching people off of it as Paul went down it...), and the fact that I almost lost control of the situation on several occasions (like when Paul asked me why we were going to Indian Motorcycle, and I told him it was 'cause my friend had recommended it, and she said "I've never been anywhere in Toronto." I had to mask her words with a laughing fit and give her meaningful looks until she got the hint to STOP TALKING.) Despite all these close calls, Paul seemed happy to see people he hadn't expected to see, and seemed grateful for the effort we'd put in (even though the outcome was less than ideal since half the party was later showing up than the birthday boy they were supposed to be surprising. Sigh.)
However, even though the *surprise* part of the party was a bit of a flop, the party in and of itself was OFF THE HOOK! We managed to get Paul COMPLETELY and UTTERLY drunk off his ass - to the point where he wasn't walking straight and kept veering towards the bar on the way to the dancefloor, to the point where he was completely red in the face, to the point where he was laughing at EVERYTHING and not saying much. Soooo drunk. And he says that from what he can remember, he had an awesome time. The same can be said of the rest of us. (Except for Zeebs who was playing D.D. and keeper of the psychopaths.) I want to put pictures up, but if it proves to be a pain, as things do, I might give up. I'll let you know what the final verdict on that is later.
posted by captain obvious at 10:50 p.m.
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