My best friend’s birthday is in May, so in high school that meant that her birthday came right before the end of the year. Senior year, her 18th birthday fell on a weekend, so she invited our little group of friends over. We did this sort of thing all the time, so it wasn’t exactly a birthday party, even though I talked Emily into bringing cake and the rest of us went out and bought presents. It was just like a normal sleepover, but with presents (the cake is actually a staple of our sleepovers. And cookies. But that’s not really the point).
As it turns out, Allison’s twin’s girlfriend was planning on holding him a surprise party that same night, and for some reason she’d thought it would be a party for Allison too – not sure where she got this idea, because she’d never even mentioned it to any of Allison’s friends. But somehow Alli got wind of it, and she agreed that we’d all show up for at least the beginning of the party, even if we didn’t stay. (We never really planned on staying – we knew Wes’s friends, but not that well, and we had our own stuff to do.)
I showed up at Alli’s house at least 15 minutes late, because I’m always late – surprisingly, I was the first person there, which is really weird because Emily and Danielle are ALWAYS on time. Turns out that Emily had actually been on time, but she’d just dropped the cake off and had to run off to do something that would take a few hours, but that she’d be back. Danielle showed up a couple of minutes after I did, and we were just waiting for Abby (who was ALWAYS late, even later than me), and Allison told us about the plan – we were supposed to wait around and leave after Wes got home but before he left for his girlfriend’s house, for whatever reason.
Wes showed up, and Abby hadn’t made it yet, but Danielle had just gotten a text saying that she was on her way. We were twitching a little at this point, because we needed to leave before Wes did (otherwise we’d miss the part where you jump out and yell “Surprise!” which is the best part, honestly) but we couldn’t just ditch Abby… So we did what any self-respecting group of 17 year old girls would do – we ran outside and waited for Abby to show up, then ran like crazy people at her car. When she slowed down we jumped in and yelled, “Drive!” And the great thing about Abby? She did. Without stopping and seriously questioning our sanity.
We eventually managed to explain the plan to her – between fits of hysterical laughter, I mean, Danielle had run out into the road and jumped up and down in front of the car, waving her arms and squealing – and she drove us all over to Wes’s girlfriend’s place. We got there considerably before he did, which was awkward – like I said, we knew Wes’s friends, but they weren’t really our friends, too, more like acquaintances – and caused me to mutter to Allison, “And this was supposed to be your party too?”
After Wes finally showed up and we shouted “Surprise!” the four of us stuck around for maybe 10 minutes. It was a pool party, kind of, and none of us had brought a bathing suit, and we had our own cake (which I was sure was better than the cake they would be serving. Emily has mad baking skills) and presents to deal with. So we hop back in Abby’s car and head back to Allison’s house, only to discover that in our rush to leave, Allison had forgotten her key. And her parents had left to take the dog on a walk. So . . . we were locked out of her house.
Naturally, this development caused great hilarity (what? We were teenaged girls. Hilarity’s pretty much the default setting) and we ended up sitting outside on Allison’s front porch waiting for her parents to get home, swatting at mosquitoes (summer in Houston. They are unavoidable) and coming up with the plot for a telenovela that we could perform in Spanish class. It was possibly the most fun I’ve ever had at a birthday party.
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