by Barry Girolamo

Created on: August 10, 2011   Last Updated: August 11, 2011

We all have birthdays, at least one, and if you’re lucky, many more. Your birthday marks your entrance into the world outside of your mother’s womb. This is when your first year begins, when you’re born, and at the end of your first twelve months of existence, you celebrate your first year on the planet.

Every twelve months thereafter, you get to celebrate another year of existence, having aged another year. As time goes on, we tend to look forward to our birthdays, until we reach an age when we wish they would stop. This number varies from person to person, but mine was thirty nine. I would have liked to have stopped the clock right there.

Forty years is a bit of a milestone for most of us, so my wife decided to throw me a surprise birthday bash for my fortieth birthday. I kind of knew it was coming, as I could always tell when she was trying to keep something secretive, but I didn’t let on. I didn’t want to spoil her fun of thinking that she had outsmarted me. I would stand in front of the bathroom mirror in the mornings leading up to my “surprise” party, practicing my phony look of surprise.

After a few weeks, I had it down pat, and I had mastered the ability to feign surprise at the drop of a hat (I love that expression, it’s so meaningless). As the big night approached, I was fully confident that I could handle the situation.

The evening of the party, I had been sent on some kind of errand which took a couple of hours. As I came back to my house, everything looked normal, and as I approached the front door, I readied my “surprised” look.

When I entered my home, there was a nice gathering of friends and relatives who all shouted surprise, and the partying began. For some reason as of yet unknown to me at that time, my wife had me don an Arab Sheik’s hat.

I sat down, and suddenly there was this strange Arab type of music being played, you know the type, it sounds like someone playing a sitar out of key. Then, in came a very attractive and scantily clad belly dancer, who more or less gave me a lap dance, as everyone watched and laughed. This, I was not prepared for.

She stood in front of me, shaking her goods, and everyone was laughing so hard, as I’m sure I must have turned beet red. My eight year old daughter was there! I was very embarrassed, and kept waiting for it to end, but it just kept going. Then, she grabbed my hands and had me dance a belly dance with her, while I wore this ridiculous Sheik’s hat.

Eventually, my brother’s got up and began to dance with her, and I sat back down in my chair and wrapped my Sheik’s hat across my face like a curtain to escape. My wife had really outsmarted me, as she knew that I would figure that there was a party, so she gave me a surprise I could never have prepared myself for. She had one-upped me but good.

To this day, many years after that night, I still can feel the surprise I felt as that night unfolded, and although I really hate being the center of a “Surprise Party”, I’m very appreciative that I married such a terrific woman.

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