I’m not very good at surprise parties

My mother turned 70 on May 16th and we planned a surprise party for her on Saturday the 17th. However, the surprise part of the equation didn’t work out very well. It turns out that she was tipped off by suspicious behavior. She knew something was up when her son (me) and her mother both did not call her on her birthday. It never really occurred to me that not calling her Friday would give away Saturday’s surprise, nor in my mind was there a distinction made between “real” birthday and the day of celebrating her birthday. I just don’t think about stuff like that. My thoughts were simple: mom’s birthday, go there Saturday, get card and gift, I’m covered. To be honest, I vaguely thought that I might have given it away earlier in the week on the phone by saying “I’ll see you Saturday at the party.” But I guess that it was the lack of a call on her “real” birthday that actually tipped her off. Oh well, I’m pretty much attributing my poor surprise party capabilities to the fact that I spend so much of my life as a pastor trying to communicate to others, hence holding back information just doesn’t come naturally. Or it could just be that as a man I have no sense of the fun related to all of this. My sisters understood, they all called and didn’t tip mom off. Yet when I was a child I do remember enjoying surprise parties, maybe I’m just getting old. Yea that will work, I’m sure that I am just getting old. Needless to say, the party was a good time anyway, surprise or not.