They Punk'd Me

So this coming Sunday's my 23rd birthday. I've been planning a little get together with a handful of friends for Saturday night at the wine bar and Mom's planning a cookout for Sunday. Really cool plans sure to be a lot of fun, but I've had one of those weeks and haven't been feeling as excited as I should be. With so many friends so far away, it just seemed like my little party would be lacking a lot because of their absence.

I went to bed late last night and had to get up early today. Feeling like a zombie, I rushed to the License Bureau with Mom so I could renew my ID before next week's trip. We waited forever and they took easily the worst picture ever taken of me. I look like a hobo.

As I was running errands with Mom, my cell phone rang. My aunt had coupons for Friday's and wanted us to meet us there. I wasn't feeling into it at all and tried to get out of it, but everyone was adamant, so I gave in.

We went into Friday's and I couldn't see a damn thing. No, I wasn't suffering from a sudden case of grumpy blindness, my sunglasses are just that ridiculously dark. I had Mom pull them off as she pointed to where my aunt was seated. Bleary eyed from the sudden change of light, I went around the corner. I hear voices yell "Surprise!" and my first thought was that I was in the way of a surprise for someone behind me. As my eyes focused I saw...

Corey? "But he's in New York City!" I thought to myself. Sara? "But her car's acting up!" Bridget? Maria? Renee? Mikey? Brendan? "What the hell?" Yes folks, they pulled a fast one on me. The sneaky, crafty, magnificent bastards.

I sat in disbelief looking at all these smiling faces I hadn't expected to see. Turns out Corey had been secretly planning this for weeks and flew in this morning. Even as I type this now, I'm still in a state of shock. How much do these people rock? Seriously.

After we all ate (and I had some kind of giant margarita,) we headed back to my house to hang out. I was surprised to find Mom even had a cake n hand. This was freakishly well orchestrated. While they all sang "Happy Birthday" to me, I let out a small laugh which somehow managed to blow out all but one of the candles.

Upon the song's finish, I blew...and blew...and blew, but the last candle stayed lit. I jokingly said "Watch, I just need to laugh again." I let out another tiny laugh and sure enough, that did the trick. The power of laughter? Or expertly engineered trick candles? You decide.

To my surprise, there were even presents, as if that surprise wasn't enough. Brendan got me WaveRace for the GameCube, Mikey & Maria got me a gift card for Suncoast, Sara got me a Marjorie Fair CD (which I'm chilling to right now), and Corey got me the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Vol. 1 DVD set. #1 in the hood, G.

One by one, everyone went home until it was just Corey, Bridget, and me relaxing and catching up with each other.

This may sound sappy, but who cares? You really know how to make a guy feel loved. You're the best. Thanks guys.