Surprize! Surprize!

It's not often that someone pulls one over on me. Once, while teaching at Sandpoint High School and advising the Drill Team Variety Show, some friends decided to do a "This Is Your Life" for me as part of one of the shows. It was to be a complete surprise, but someone called the house, expecting me to be somewhere else, in hopes of getting some information from a family member. When I answered the phone, the person at the other end gasped at the shock of hearing my voice, said he'd made a mistake and quickly hung up.

Somehow a few more hints over the next couple of days gave me a pretty good clue that something was up and that it had to do with the variety show. So, when I was called to the stage, and the segment began, everything fell into place. By that moment, I had enough of an idea that I also knew it was important to ACT SURPRISED. I guess I did okay because everyone seemed genuinely pleased that they'd tricked me big time on this honor.

Years ago, my mother tried to coordinate a surprise birthday party for me in conjunction with a 4-H meeting. I can't remember what incident prior to the surprise gave it away, but I caught on and then felt really stupid, knowing what was about to happen.

Surprisingly, I'm sure to most folks who know me, I feel extremely uncomfortable having attention drawn to myself, unless it's a situation like teaching or telling a story where I expect folks to pay attention and listen. With that birthday party, however, I knew how special it was for my mother to succeed at her surprise, so I again feigned genuine shock and pleasure at being so honored.

Since childhood, I've had one of those busy minds that keeps track of all details, all dynamics, all sudden changes in behavior. Normally, all that data goes into my internal antennae and alerts me that something is amiss. Blessed---or maybe at times---cursed with such uncanny intuition, I'm generally not surprised at much of anything.

My daughter Annie, however, must have enough of the family genes and know me well enough to bypass my internal radar. She pulled a good one on me yesterday. I had just come into the house from mowing the lawn and started working on a writing project when my Call Wave told me she was on the line. She left no message, so I knew she'd be calling my cell phone number within seconds. Sure enough, the phone rang as soon as I grabbed it.

After the usual greeting and observation that she must have a cold, she told me she was doing just fine and that she'd just yawned. This is standard policy for Annie when she calls her mom. The initial yawn tells me that all is normal. On this occasion, it just didn't sound like the normal yawn.

"So, what are you doing?" I asked.

"Just driving around," she said. That's when I realized it was her day off from her job at the Courtyard Marriott in Seattle, so I knew we were in for a fairly lengthy conversation. I picked up Kiwi, who was at my feet, and tried to coax her to whimper over the phone so Annie could establish some connection with our new little pup in far off Seattle. Kiwi eventually cooperated. Then, I continued on telling her all the latest Kiwi details.

Suddenly, I looked up and spotted a car coming in the driveway.

"Damn," I growled to Annie, "who's coming now?" I was instantly irritated that this visit with my daughter would be cut short by some unannounced visitor. The car came closer.

"OKAY, you creep!" I screamed. "You got me!" I think I did turn the phone off while jumping up and running to the door. There sat my daughter in her car. She pulled off a good one, and we've been having a great visit ever since. She also has gotten well acquainted with Kiwi.

I'll take SURPRIZES like this any day.