Surprise Party – The Ins and the Mishaps

This year I threw a surprise party for my boyfriend. To say it was nerve-wracking would be the understatement of the century. If you are in a relationship you know the troubles that go with looking for a suitable gift for the many many occasions that require the exchange of gifts each year.

Since I am African, specifically Kenya, where gift giving is not common at all, like seriously gifts are a luxury, I usually get away with giving my boyfriend, Marcus (we just call him Marc), a gift only on his birthday. Don’t worry, he rarely gives me any other gift too. For other holidays such as Valentine’s day we usually go out on a date or something.

Anyway, his birthday is on January 5th meaning I have to make sure I do not spend all my money during the Christmas holiday. If I do then we will have a very bad start of the year.

So prior to this year’s birthday I kept wondering what I would get him. Last time I kinda just surprised him with a cake (he doesn’t like cake). So this year I had to step up. I had been toying with the idea of throwing him a surprise party so I finally decided on it. I texted all my pals (they are like 4-5) about it and they were all happy to help. His birthday was on a Friday but the party had to be on Saturday since most of my pals had to work on that Saturday.

So the plan was in motion. On Friday I skipped work to buy the stuff needed for the party. Later that night I left for his place to make sure he did not get the idea to come to my place.

The D-DAY

On Saturday, poor me had to go to work on some impromptu event I couldn’t miss. So I left his place with special instructions not to leave his house until I called him. He has a key to my place so he could easily decide to drop by my place to wait for me. To make sure he wasn’t suspicious, I told him I was gonna buy a jacket as his present so we would go for shopping later in the day. PS. It worked. Until it almost didn’t.

So, one of my good friends, Lou, was supposed to go to my place at around 12 PM to start setting up. Needless to say, being the African timer she is, she got to my place at 3 PM. My other pal, Emma was supposed to help her she got there at 5 PM.

My plan had been to leave work at 3 PM, go to do some shopping with Marc, by 5 PM we head back to my place or the surprise. I was surprisingly on time and by 5 PM we were ready to head back to my place. The only problem was, half the people were yet to arrive. It would not have been much of a surprise party with only three people so I needed plan B. So I am in town, we have found the Jacket he wanted, I literally have no other activity to do. So he asks “What next, am tired” that is like asking me, “are we going home now?”

At that point, I remembered that I needed to buy my perfume. Luckily, the shop I normally buy from was on the other side of town. That gave me around 10 mins to think of the next step. All this while I am texting my pals and my phone battery was at 10%. So I had about one hour of battery, I couldn’t borrow his phone, and we were walking around town clueless.

Emma suggested the movies. Another attendee, Josh suggested walking to some park with statues?? I know. So the only option was the movies. We walked for 5 more minutes to the IMAX theatre that is right in the middle of town. They were showing Jumanji, which is something we have been talking about watching so I was excited for about 3 seconds. I then noticed that they were selling the 3D glasses for way too much and I had 2 pairs in the house already. So needless to say, my cheap January ass could not buy those overpriced shits.

The only option was now to ask Marc. “What would you like to do now? Am out of options” I told him the truth. Of course, there was an option to go home so to avoid that being his answer, which I am pretty sure would have been, I added. “I wanted to make this day special maybe go to a club?” It was around 6 PM by that time and my very “punctual friends” were still not in my place. “I could eat…” That was his answer. I wasn’t hungry, and I knew there was food in the house so I almost said no, but then it hit me, what if we go to a lounge of some sort that serves foods and drinks. As we were wondering where to go, we saw the perfect spot right on the same street.

We went in and the environment was perfect for a date night. I wished that it had been my plan all along. We stayed there for about two hours. My phone had long been dead by the time we were leaving so I hijacked his to call my friends. They had all settled down at that time so we boarded the bus.

I know this is the point where I say that the party was perfect and that the surprise was not ruined. But this is not a movie and things are never perfect in real life. When we got off the bus, the walk was two minutes. My friends should have locked the door and killed the lights so that I could open it as usual. My padlock jammed so they didn’t lock and the idiots that I call friends had left 3 pairs of shoes, that were clearly not mine, outside the door.

So Marc asked, “whose shoes are those?” At this point, I just needed to use the toilet so bad (I had two cocktails earlier), so I just shrugged, walked to the door, opened it and turned on the lights. My pals yelled “SURPRISE!!!!” in unison. He seemed genuinely surprised so I will hope that he was.

The rest of the night was filled with games, dance and music. It actually turned out pretty well. One thing I am sure of is that I would not have pulled it off without my friends. Guys if you ever read this, know that am very grateful and I love you.

That is the story of my first surprise party. What is yours?