We Wasted the Good Surprise on You

Surprise parties present such problems for everyone involved.

 If you are the guest of honor, then the weeks leading up to the party, you think that no one cares about you.  This is because everyone who knows about the party is trying really hard to be really sneaky and therefore say nothing about anything pertaining to the event at hand.  Not even a hint that they know that something is going on.  So if it's a birthday, no one even acts like they remember it's coming.  If it's a congratulatory party, no one acts like they care.  You may as well have lost your job, or quit school. So you end up feeling that you are a loser who has no friends, and the ones you do have, hate you.

If you are the organizer, you are forced to think of who to invite.  This is so crucial because if you invite someone that you have no idea that the guest of honor has a secret loathing for, then you are screwed.  You shift quickly from "party-organizer-hero" to "party-ruiner."  If you invite the enemy, then you are better off not throwing a party at all.

When it's time for the "SURPRISE" everyone is always freaking out.  And with good reason, I mean no one was mean to their friend for no reason right?  But this moment is either overly prepared or completely under prepared.  If it's coordinated perfectly, then the guest of honor is receiving text messages or phone calls telling them where to go and when, that the organizer hopes to pull off as a spur of the moment plan, and the guest of honor will wonder why the heck the organizer is suddenly so freaking prompt and organized.  If it's not planned well, then the surprise is wasted.  The house is full and booming with loud tunes and doritos crunching and then right before the guest of honor gets there everything is quiet.  You have to balance a fine line between being organized and being aloof.  Which is really hard to do when you are trying to be yourself and make someone go somewhere right at an exact moment.  This is the most stressful part of the party.

Attached to the "SURPRISE" moment, is the mess of the picture takings.  For some reason, when people hide and are waiting, there is this temptation to crouch down.  No matter that there is most likely nothing to hide behind since everyone is in a living room, if people are crouching they feel like they are being really stealth.  So when the guest of honor opens that door and people scream the beloved "SURPRISE" all the cameras start flashing; but from down below.  This results in the guest of honor always having a double chin.  Eyes red, and stomach looking sort of pregnant.  They always demand that a fake "surprise picture" is taken, and it never fools anyone.