SURPRISE!!!!!…you weren’t invited?

We went to a surprise party the other night and as a self-centered individual I have to say that these things put way too much pressure on the invitie (hey it’s my blog I will make up words if I want to).

I’m not even talking about the part where you lie to the birthday girl although that’s a pain in the butt too.

“So I guess I will see you Sunday at Church”
“No remember Tuesday…oh um…wait that’s next week…yea see ya at Church…um goodbye…” Click beep beep beep beep

My problem is I never know who is invited and who isn’t. Last year we got invited to one and thought that several other people did also. Nope. All week we went around asking people what they were getting the surprisie (new word) for her going away party. All week we heard this “What party? I knew she was leaving but nobody told me we were throwing her a party.”

What do you say to that? We went with “I’m sure they just haven’t gotten around to asking you yet.” What we were really thinking though was “Dude it’s Friday, the party is Saturday, and they don’t want you there”

What I hate is keeping it from the rest of the people that may or may not also be invited. We are fortunate enough to be friends with a large number of people who we come in contact with on a daily basis and it kills me to have to not talk about something that we might be able to talk about.

For a regular non-surprise party the usual questions are passed between invities.
“Are you gonna go?”
“What time are you gonna get there?” (I hate to be first or last)
“ What are you bringing?” (This helps gauge what we bring. I don’t wanna be the one bringing a $5 gift if everyone else spent $30. This works with food to. You don’t wanna spend hours slaving in the kitchen if the rest of the crew is popping into Wal-Mart on the way there)

With the surprise party none of these questions get answered. What happens is everyone goes around all week trying to break down every sentence from other potential invities just in case there was a clue as to whether or not they got the invitation.

“So what you guys doing Tuesday?”
“Why? What are you up to that night?”
“Oh I don’t know I was just seeing what you had going on this week.”
“We might be free on Tuesday. Wanna get together?”
Crap they weren’t invited!!! “Nah we better just sit home. I think Fred is coming down with something”
“Oh. Ok. Well maybe later on this week.”
“Cool. Maybe we can get a few people together.”
“ That will be fun. We can do it at our place. I don’t want to make it too big though. I’ll just invite 3 or 4 other people. Talk to ya later” Click
“WAIT!!! WHO????!!! WHO ELSE IS COMING????!!!!”