Happy Birthday! TO MEEE

Since it’s finally May, I can say that my birthday has passed.

After I got home from the trip, Club President invited me out for a girl’s day together. I drove up to her house and from there, she drove me to a nail salon. I’ve only ever gotten my nails done 2 times prior. I like the way acrylic nails look but have a hard time maintaining them since after a week. I get bored and antsy and start trying to rid off the fake nails. Well anyways, yea I got acrylics. A simple but sweet design. Club President and I were luckily seated next to each other and just gossiped the whole time. In between our session, I got a call from Gretchen. The nail technician directed me to go wash my hands so with just a quick hello and goodbye, I gave my phone to Club President so the both of them could chat, too, until I came back. Apparently, Gretchen just got out of class and I asked Club President if she thought we should invite Gretchen along for our girls day, but she reassured me that Gretchen just got picked up by her boyfriend and was unavailable. After a good 2 hours in the chair, we got a bit hungry so I pointed out the Olive Garden across the plaza, but Club President said she needed to go back home to return a key fob to her brother so he could go to the swimming pool with his friends.

As she parked in the driveway, Club President warned me a few of her cousins might be over. A nice warning because if I walked into a random crowd of people unknowingly in her house, my mind would be absolutely terrified. I slowly opened her door, scared of the mass of people, but… no one was there. At the end of the other side of the living room was Coffee (a new friend) with a party hat and a cake with lit candles. “Happy Birthday Lia!!” I looked around the room and it was covered with balloons and across the dining table was a glittered ‘Happy Birthday’ banner. I was so surprised I shrieked out loud and started running across the hall to go hug Coffee. As I make it through the hall and past the living room archway, I hear a very loud blast. It makes me stop my screeching and stop dead in my tracks. I look around slowly thinking a balloon just popped, but all of the sudden something’s obstructing my view. Confetti? In this confusion, I keep turning my head until I see Gretchen with a huge confetti cannon in her head. I start screaming some more and we both go in for a hug. I’m in total shock, genuinely believing she was with her new boyfriend. My hug transitions over to Coffee and all the girls are giggling and snapping photos/videos. We let go and all the girls sing me the Happy Birthday song before I blow out my candles. That’s when I also notice the bouquets of flowers and stacks of birthday presents.

Coffee is a girl from the club I was in. I’ve hung out with her before, but that was when there were a lot of other people with us. We also hung out a few months ago when we were prepping for Gretchen’s surprise birthday together in February. She’s older than the three of us and very sentimental. So loving.

Apparently, after Club President and I left to our nail appointment, Coffee and Gretchen snuck in her house to start setting up. In the morning, Club President had warned her dad not to let her first friend in (believing I would knock on the door) but unbeknownst to her, I waited for her at the garage door. She forgot to update her dad, so when Coffee and Gretchen came to set up, her dad didn’t let them in. This is also what prompted Gretchen to call me (since Club President kept her phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’) and I just coincidentally passed the phone over to her and Club President had to tell her dad through the phone to let them in.

I read through the birthday cards and went through all the presents and felt very touched and loved to the very end. When it was time to cut the cake, it was a bit…frozen. Club President had bought it the day before and froze the cake to preserve it. I guess it hadn’t defrosted in time. To let it melt, we decided to go out for food and grab a bite. It was a mom-and-pop Korean restaurant nearby. We ate well, talked about new relationships, my upcoming move, and had a really good time. After we all ate, Gretchen excused herself to go to the restroom, but apparently she is an absolute LIAR! She used that time to sneak away to pay for my portion and ah~ these girls make my heart melt.

When we got back to Club President’s house, the cake was still frozen. Gretchen tried to cut it with the plastic cake cutter the bakery gave, and the handle just completely broke off. We salvaged the rest and just ate the cake as it was with our forks. We put jazz music in the background and took out some painting supplies as our last event of the night. To set off the vibes even more, Coffee suggested to bring out some wine. Although we couldn’t find any wine bottles, we just opted for strawberry Seagrams in a wine glass instead. We painted together for a good 2 hours and then surprised each other at the end with the grand reveal of our paintings. Club President painted 2 kittens playing with flowers, Gretchen painted a city skyline, and Coffee and I ended up painted the same thing- a painting of my surprise birthday to commemorate the day. Although hers was a lot nicer because she actually knew how to paint. I just drew everyone as stick figures.

TLDR; a surprise birthday party is very surprising.