It's a Sur-preeze!
So, this past weekend I drove to Detroit to join in a surprise birthday dinner for my brother thrown by his lovely new wife - Ravneet. I was very curious to see how this would go down because I don't really think my brother and surprises should go in the same sentence.
Well, not anymore...
When I was in college, I think my sophomore or junior year, a group of us friends got the idea to go to Chicago for Spring Break. We went to school in Ohio, so the thought of going somewhere equally cold and windy seemed like a natural choice. I was also very excited because my brother was going to medical school* at the University of Chicago at the same time. (*foreshadowing)
So... I get the brilliant idea that I wouldn't tell him I was coming, but that instead I would show up on his front door in a box. Perfect. So now all I needed to do before we left was to get a box. Drove to the local Wal-Mart esque super store -aka Meijer and got a box from the loading dock. My friends and I drive to Chicago with said box and arrive without incidence.
I don't remember exactly what day I went to surpise him, it might have been a Saturday. Anyway, I had my friend Mary Beth give him a call to make sure he was at home. Now the thing you have to keep in mind is that I SERIOUSLY thought my brother was going to see through my plan at every possible moment. I thought when my friend called and asked for Michael, Michael Smith (instead of his real last name) he would know INSTANTLY that it was a friend of mine calling. He didn't.
We take the L down to South Chicago, go up to his apartment and I get into the box. My friends tape a single layer of tape over the folds and ring the doorbell. There was a sloppy address scrawled on the box. No postage. The plan was that 2 of my friends would say they were neighbors from a few doors down who had gotten his package by mistake and that they were delivering it to the right person finally. Again, I thought my brother would take one look at the box and know EXACTLY what was going on. He didn't.
So, in the box, I wait for my friends to ring the doorbell. Then I hear the sound of the front door opening. Then I hear the conversation. My friends sound pretty convincing. My brother is totally getting it. I feel the box being lifted and my friend say, "It's kinda heavy" and I can tell that I am being carried and then set down inside the apartment. I hear my friends leave, my brother exchange thank-you's with them. I hear the front door closing and then I hear silence. Nothing. And I'm thinking, he's waiting me out on this one. He wants to see how long I will remain in the box. He knows what is going on. He knows I am in there. It's clear that this is a blatant punk. He is going to say, Anne Marie--come out of the box--I know you are in there. He doesn't.
Instead, I hear the sound of a toilet flushing in the apartment. I am puzzled. A package this huge arrives at your door and the first thing you do is go to the bathroom? Maybe he doesn't realize the package is for him. Maybe he has a tradition of waiting until his roommates get home and they all open the mail together. Maybe he knows I am in there and he is simply going to wait until I have to go to the bathroom myself. Suddenly, I am not getting the best feeling and I am thinking of my friends who are waiting around the corner outside for me to let them in.
Then, I hear the jingle of keys. Is he going to take me in his car and throw me off a bridge? Is he going to leave and report this suspicious package and suspicious neighbors to the police? No. Instead, he uses a key from his ring to unnecessarily tear through the thinly placed single piece of tape over the top of the box. Oh good, I think! I don't have to sit for days in my own feces to be able to surprise him. I am familar with his apartment and realize that I am in his front hallway. I know the lighting is not good here, but I am also not sure if the flaps have been opened because the lighting hasn't gotten any better. BTW, this is the position I was in (minus the bottle in my hand):
So as you can see, not great visuals for what is happening.
At this exact moment, I am thinking--why isn't he saying my name and something like, "You are crazy--what are you doing there?" Instead, I hear nothing. Absolutely nothing. I am debating whether I should just jump up like a jack-in-the-box, when all of a sudden I feel the back of my head being pushed down by what I presume are Michael's fingers. ??? What? So I do the only natural thing I could think of, and start rising out of the box in this poorly lit hallway.
What happend next, I cannot put into words, but I will try.
Extreme Panic. Confusion. Screaming. Running. Flight or Fight? Definitly Flight. Regret. Sorrow. Deep Sorrow. Horrific Screaming. Sympathetic system in full drive. Gut Screaming. Fearing of life Screaming. Mayhem. Livestock. Death. Baked potato. Black hole. Anuerism. Vomit. Another Anuerism.
Suddenly, it dawns on me that this was not a good idea.
Somewhere between seeing Michael's back as he ran out the back door and hearing him yell words I've never heard before - I suddenly was getting the picture that I had made an error.
He was not surprised. He was scared shitless. I was not prepared for this. My image of me, him and my friends sipping hot cider and laughing about there being no postage on the box completely disappeared. Now a new image appeared- one of me running through the streets after my brother who had quickly gathered whatever found objects to protect himself - a spare bike tire, the lid from someone's mailbox that he ripped off, a captured brown throated wren.
Needless to say, Michael did return to his apartment quite shortly after. (He must have put it all together about 3 steps out into his backyard). When he sees me again, he looks at me and says in all honesty, " Did you MAIL yourself to me???" I explained that indeed I hadn't and that my friends had helped me.
I must say he was a very good sport about it. He went from #$#$-ing scared to houseguest in about 3 minutes. My friends were ushered in and then I had to ask him --WHAT DID YOU THINK? These were his responses:
1. He believed the neighbor bit.
2. He wrote off that the package was so heavy for 2 reasons:
i. He had entered a contest to win a keyboard and thought that he actually had won it.
ii. He thought our mother had sent him a bed frame.
3. When he opend the flaps, he could not tell it was a person, let alone, me. He thought it looked like a pile
of clothing.
4. When he pushed my head down, or what he thought was a hat - he was confused as to why it gave a
little, but then came back again. Almost like it was a head attached to a neck.
5. When he saw a body rising from the box, he thought it was a cadaver -sent to him by one of his medical
student friends.
6. There was no discussion on flight or fight. It was 100% flight. Completely.
7. And yes, he did admit. He was surprised.
.........................
So....
Cut back to last weekend, the surprise dinner went over really well. There was no screaming. No swearing. No running away. There was just laughter and love and hot cider. Just like I always imagined.
P.S. - This is only the beginning of my surprise stories. If you want ideas for how to surprise someone, ANYONE - let me know and I can make it happen.