#136

Hello, friends and family!
Here’s what we were working on this week when we weren’t party planning…

Today is our daughter’s 16th birthday! We threw her a surprise party out at our friends’ house in the country last night. The theme was The Death of Childhood, so her friends were encouraged to wear funeral attire. Jo made Day of the Dead style decorations, invitations, and even candy wrappers for souvenir chocolate bars.

It actually took quite a few lies to bring our 16 year old to that moment when she looked so confused as everyone yelled “surprise!”
Some of our lies included:
1. “We’re going to a fancy restaurant in Portland tonight to celebrate your birthday.”
This was so that she would believe that there was a plan of some kind to celebrate, and also so that she would get dressed up for her own party.
2. (On the phone) “The car won’t start! We’re stuck here at the store, but I have a tow truck on the way. If we can get it fixed today, we’re still going to go out to dinner.”
This lie was to get the rest of us out of the house and to stall for time as we picked up some of her friends and decorate for the party.
3. “We ran into Susan while we were waiting for the tow truck, so mommy went with her to help her with Willow’s softball party while I take care of the car.”
This would make it necessary for her and I to go out to the country house to pick them up once the car was “fixed.“ It would also explain any cars parked at the party house, and even the trail of balloons leading the way through the many forks in the road along their gravel driveway.
4. This one is not so much a lie, but it’s my favorite. On the drive out to the house, I had a bag of french fries and a couple apple pies from McDonalds in the car to mask the smell of the six pizzas in the trunk.

These lies were so effective that at the moment when she spotted her first friend and everyone yelled “surprise”, she thought What’s she doing here? Does she have a sister on the softball team?
Next year I think we’ll concoct a series of events that seem extremely suspicious, but lead only to mundane events. We may even have to stage a real softball party just to keep her scratching her head.

-Dylan