Oops, I Did It Again
My cousin Marty and I sat staring at the pitch-dark house. We had pulled up to the address that was scribbled on a scrap of newspaper and were thoroughly confused. This seemed to be the right place. But there were supposed to be lots of people there, and there was not even a glimmer of light through any of the windows. How weird! We were unsure of what to do and finally decided we’d at least ring the bell before driving off.
I had just turned 17, and coveted my newly minted driver’s license, jumping at any opportunity to get behind the wheel. My sister Roberta, who was amazingly generous to me, said I could borrow her VW Karmann Ghia whenever she wasn’t using it. The burnt orange finish accented its curves, giving it a sleek and retro look. It was the coolest car, such fun to drive!
Marty, who’s a year younger, and I thought we’d take a ride from where we lived very close to one another in Queens out to Long Island to visit our aunt and uncle, Louise and Marvin.
Marty suggested we call first, just to make sure they were home. After all, it was an hour away.
“Nah,” I chuckled. “Let’s just show up! It’ll be fun.”
Marty smiled. “Yeah, they’ll love it.”
When we arrived at Louise and Marvin’s house, their children – our cousins – ages ranging from 5 to 13, told us that their parents were at a party at Tom and Barb Kelly’s house, just a few blocks away. Our cousins wanted us to stay and play with them, and we promised to return after saying hello to their parents. The kids gave us the address and I wrote it in the margin of a scrap of newspaper and put it in my pocket.
The Kellys lived on a quiet suburban street, much like our aunt and uncle’s. As we neared the house, the first thing that caught our attention was that there were no other cars parked in front. Next, of course, was how dark the house was. Thinking our cousins may have given us the wrong house number, we parked a few feet from the mailbox, planning to knock on the door and ask the residents if they knew where Tom and Barb lived.
Marty and I got out of the car and started down the walkway to the front door. Just then, we spotted a couple walking toward us from around the corner. We stopped, thinking we might as well ask them.
As they neared us, the man pleasantly said, “Hi, guys. Are you lost? Whose house are you looking for?”
“Oh, hi,” Marty said. “This is 18 Magnolia Court, right?”
“Yes, it is,” the woman responded.
“We were looking for our aunt and uncle. Maybe you know them, Marvin and Louise, who live on Cherry Blossom?” I asked.
“Sure, of course, they’re good friends of ours,” she replied.
“Their kids just told us they’d be here at a party, and we just wanted to surprise them and say hello. But it looks like no one’s here,” I said, puzzled.
At that, the couple froze, their eyes widening as they both gasped. The woman put her hand to her mouth, now fully agape, then collapsed into the man’s arms. He held her tightly and whispered, dumbfounded, “Oh my god!’”
Marty and I looked at each other, unsure if the reaction was because we had unwittingly delivered disastrous news or the best news ever. The woman emitted the most ambiguous sound – either delight or despair, a laugh or a sob. In that split second, either seemed plausible.
We stood there motionlessly, worried that we might have opened Pandora’s box.
Marty and I instinctively glanced toward the house, its eerie darkness ominous.
Then BOOM!
The door flung open! And immediately out poured a seemingly endless stream of people, all racing right toward the couple. They were jumping about and shouting “Surprise! Surprise!” They encircled the couple, each person jubilantly vying for an opening to hug the stunned Tom and Barb.
It was, indeed, the Kelly’s house! And the couple we encountered were, yes, the Kellys. It was a surprise party for their 25th wedding anniversary.
The house had been surreptitiously packed with about forty friends and relatives eagerly anticipating their arrival, waiting on pins and needles for them to cross the threshold, setting up the uncorking of a powerhouse surprise. A year’s worth of careful planning culminating in that moment was, in a heartbeat, shattered. All because Marty and I needed to take a drive.
We stood there, Marty and I, helplessly, sheepishly, awkwardly, while the partygoers buzzed around Tom and Barb on the front lawn, illuminated by a sole streetlamp. Barb’s reaction now made sense. In fact, she was crying. And laughing. Her emotions occupied that rare space where pure joy intersects with the ache of being deeply moved.
We could hear Tom peppering the people around him, “Did you know about this? Did you know?”
“Did you know?” That question spills from surprised celebrants with great spontaneity and frequency. It’s such a funny question, and yet there it is, a staple of surprise party talk. We all know it defies logic – after all, they wouldn’t be there if they didn’t know – yet we feel compelled to ask. One of life’s curiosities.
Marty and I remained on the periphery of the exuberant human blob enveloping the Kellys, wishing the meticulously manicured lawn would suddenly swallow us up. Just as we nudged each other, signaling that it was time to sneak away, Uncle Marvin bounded over to us. We thought we were in trouble for ruining the surprise. Big Trouble, with a capital T!
As he approached, he turned toward the crowd and announced, “Everyone, I’d like to introduce the party crashers. They are my nephews, Barry and Marty.” Then, with his typical jocularity and affection, he jested, “What’s the penalty for ruining a surprise that took months to plan?”
Lots of laughs from everyone. We were seen more as hapless goofballs than villains. Now, the center of attention had shifted from the Kellys to the two of us, red-faced as several of the guests asked us what happened. Unfortunately, for us, there was no hope of the lawn giving way to a sink hole.
Tom came over, put his arms around us and invited us in. “You guys didn’t ruin the surprise. You just moved it outside.”
Everyone could not have been more good-natured and gracious.
As we filed in with the real guests, the hostess, a sweet woman named Irene, tapped a glass summoning everyone’s attention. She explained to the Kellys, as well as to Marty and me, that each guest had been assigned a hiding spot and was armed with silver and white streamers to be simultaneously unfurled toward the happy couple.
Irene said that the designated lookout saw the Kellys speaking with us as we were motioning to the house. When it became apparent that the Kellys knew a surprise party awaited them, the lookout quickly advised abandonment of the plan. That’s when they all rushed outside.
Irene proposed that for fun they should recreate the plan. She asked Tom and Barb to wait back out on the lawn for a couple of minutes. As she was instructing all the guests to resume their positions and prepare their streamers, she turned to Marty and me, directing us to hide under the dining room table. She gave us streamers too, so we’d fit right in. “But” she admonished with a playful wink, “Don’t jump out early, otherwise you might ruin the surprise!”
Well, we may have spoiled the plan, but we certainly gave them a story they’ll remember for years.
Did I learn my lesson? Fast forward to today.
Amy and I enjoy taking cooking classes. For fun, we scour cooking school sites online to find a class with a cuisine we know little about. One popped up featuring Korean dishes in the Soho section of NYC.
Once registered, we received information about the class and the recipes. There was also a link called “How to Find the School.”
How to Find the School? How difficult could it be? Just give the address and we’ll put it in the GPS. But when you click on the directions link, you learn that the school is in a small building that is not easy to find.
It struck us as so odd to read instructions like this: “Enter a small alleyway between buildings 35 and 37. You will see a green door on your right. The alleyway is not well lit, and the door has no lettering or numbers. The
door will be unlocked. Once inside, you will see another door on the left which is the elevator. It does not look like an elevator, so don’t walk past it. Press the small black button to the right of the door, and the elevator will come. Enter quickly as it closes very fast. The school is located on the 3rd floor.”
Sounded like we’d be entering a spy ring or getting location details for a drug deal. Maybe the witness protection program.
It turned out that these instructions were very necessary. The alley had a narrow opening, one we’d have walked by a thousand times without noticing. That threshold was a forebodingly abrupt, a disquieting transition from the concrete, neon, and blare of the bustling city street into a parallel universe of shadows and whispers. It was like the grimy passageway in a Dickens novel, the uneven cobblestones damp from the settled fog.
The promised green door on the right was not to be found, although there was a gray door on the left. So much for the accuracy of the detailed instructions.
We ventured a little farther into the alleyway.
Eureka! A green door on the right! I tried to push it open. It didn’t budge. It took a hard shove with my shoulder to do the trick. And there in front of us was the nondescript elevator door, just as the instructions had indicated.
Was there really a cooking class, or were we unwitting fools of a hoax perpetrated by mischievous tricksters or an eccentric social scientist who wanted to see how far his human lab rats would go to attend a cooking class?
Just as I pressed the call button for the elevator, a young couple in their mid-twenties entered through the green door. We smiled and said hello.
Not content to leave it there, I said, “So, I guess you also braved the crazy instructions.”
The man smiled, and as he did, his eyes narrowed and he tilted his head toward his companion, then put his forefinger in front of his lips. I should have said nothing else, but that would have meant picking up a cue that would have been glaringly evident to virtually anyone else.
Forging ahead, I announced, “So I guess we won’t be the only ones learning how to cook Korean food tonight!”
At this point, the young woman magically morphed into Barb Kelly – eyes wide, mouth agape, momentarily paralyzed into stunned silence followed by an eruption of shocked laughter.
“A cooking class!” she exclaimed. “And Korean food! So, that’s the big surprise?”
Oops, I Did it Again!
Appearing dismayed but with a hint of relief, the man turned to me and murmured with a sigh, “It was a surprise to celebrate the one-year anniversary of our first date. We met on a plane bound for Korea where we both were going to teach English.”
Feeling awful, I stammered through a flurry of apologies.
The couple, Dave and Emily, couldn’t have been more charming. She was so enamored by his thoughtful surprise plan that my blowing it didn’t seem to matter a bit.
As we stepped into the elevator, Dave, recapturing some enthusiasm I feared my bumbling had snuffed out, exclaimed, “Ok, let’s all act surprised when we get out of the elevator because the chef has planned something special.”
“What?” Emily asked.
“Well, let’s keep at least that a surprise, unless of course this guy,” he laughed, gesturing good-naturedly in my direction, “is in on it and can’t help blurting it out.”
“My lips are sealed,” I vowed with mock reassurance.
When the elevator door opened, for a split second, there I was, right back at the Kellys. The place was completely dark.
Then BOOM!
The room exploded in light and about 15 of Dave and Emily’s friends, as well as a few other registrants sprang into action, showering Dave and Emily with gleeful shouts of “Happy Anniversary!”
Streamers!
