Surprise to the Award Winning Wife, Part I

Let me preface this blog entry by saying that I cannot keep anything from the wife. And, by that I do mean anything.

I can't lie to her. I can't hide things from her. I can't keep anything from her. She knows. She literally just looks at me and she knows everything.


(No, this photo has nothing to do with the actual blog entry but I thought Lucy's scowl fit nicely with the theme.)

So, the past few days the wife has been wondering what the HELL is wrong with me. I suppose she thought (1) I was having an affair; (2) taking illicit drugs; (3) missing my medication; or (4) all of the above. I can't help it. I have spent the entire past five days trying not to hyperventilate or throw up.

It all started many days ago when I learned the wife was going to receive a very prestigious award at work. A surprise award. I was asked to get ahold of her parents and others I thought would be interested in coming to the awards ceremony. This is AWESOME! I am excited....but then realize, this is a surprise......I know and she doesn't.

So, I get on the email and on the phone and start contacting people any way I can. Along the way, I get this hair-brained idea to have an open house after the awards ceremony. I mean, her parents are coming from out of state, her friends are really excited and I'm so proud I could burst. So, I add that to the mix.

This means I now have TWO SECRETS to harbor. If I was acting like a freak before, now I am a DOUBLE FREAK. I can't sleep. I can't think. My head spins. I cannot let her know!

There is only one way to succeed at this and this is to not speak to her. Of course, this is obvious, too and makes her worry more about what the hell is wrong with me.

In the meantime, I learn that I will be out of town the same day as the award ceremony and will fly back into town just before the ceremony. This means I cannot prepare the house for the festivities. By this, I mean put out the food, put the pop on ice, put out the tablecloth. I don't mean clean anything because everything is perfectly tidy at any given moment.

I now have complications to the complication of sneaking around. This distracts me so badly that I can barely put sentences together.

Did I mention that the wife HATES HATES HATES surprises? This is not an exaggeration--she has still not forgive me for the Surprise Superbowl Party in 1997. This complicates the complications of the complications.

I am so going to vomit.

Thank god MJagger offered to help--she'll come let the dogs out and open the doors, just in case someone gets to the house early. So, I buy a bunch of snacks, hide them in my trunk, hide pop at Cheeseball Neighbor's in the garage and drive around all day with a whipped cream cake in my trunk trying to figure out where to put it.

In the meantime, emails are flying about the country. Now, the wife has never even looked once at my email account in her whole entire life, but I, being the moron that I am, forget that I have these surprise award emails in my mailbox and tell her to sign in to check the status of her ebay payment.

Dear god, how stupid am I? There her name is, plastered all over all the emails. I quickly cover the screen with my hand (how subtle is that?) and tell her not to look. Duh! I squeek out it's a surprise for our California trip and beg her not to ask anything. She doesn't ask anything but I know this was a really stupid move.

In the meantime meantime, people are trying to call me without alerting the wife of what is going on. This is a fiasco, as you can imagine. The wife, being the wife, starts asking questions.
I have no real answers, just stupid ones that make me look like I'm psychotic, neurotic, possessed, on drugs or a complete moron.

The whipped cream cake remains in the trunk.

I pray she stops asking questions. I am scared shitless that the wife is going to be pissed off for my after-award celebrations at the house. I am scared shitless that I will slip up and say something stupid. I am scared shitless that the whipped cream cake will melt. I have a stomach ache and a headache and I am counting the hours til the award comes and goes......

I count the hours. Less than 24 hours to go. Someone get me some chocolate!