I get so MAD!

October 5th, 2008 at 04:38pm Posted by Bill

July 9th, 2008, was our 20 year anniversary. I wanted to do something big for Kathy, and I started planning early. After discussing options with many people, including her best friend Lori, I decided to surprise her with a weekend in Las Vegas. My grandparents lived there years ago, and other family and friends still live there, so we’ve been there many times, and always have fun. Every time we’ve visited however, there has been something “missing”. Kathy’s hinted that she would love to see a show sometime. We always seem to stay with family, or in the cheapest room we could find. We always seem to make one compromise or another. I hoped to make this a trip that she would remember for a long time.

I arranged with her boss for her to have Saturday July 19th off (she has Sunday-Monday off normally.) I told him what I was planning, and asked him to keep it quiet until we were back from the trip. I also arranged with Lori for her to pick up Lexi sometime after we left the house and keep her for the week-end. I knew the boys would be OK on their own.

She figured that I was planning something, but I wouldn’t give her any sort of hints, or even confirm whether I was actually planning anything or not. When it came time to actually start booking and purchasing the trip, however, I finally had to acknowledge that I was up to something. The only thing I told her was that I had some plans, and that she was not allowed, under any circumstances, to go on-line and look at the checking or credit card accounts. This was about 2 and a half weeks before the trip. I told her that all would be revealed soon (but I didn’t say exactly when), and not to ask any questions. Any at all. Not a single question. None.

That didn’t last long. I was able to deflect almost every question with an answer of “You’ll see” or “You’ll just have to wait” or something else along those lines. At some point, she even asked point blank “Does my boss know what’s going on?” This wasn’t a question I could sidestep without it being very obvious that I had in fact arranged for some time off with him, and since this was to be a big part of the suprise, I had to lie to her.

“Your boss? No, of course not! Why would I involve him? He doesn’t know anything about the plans I’m making!”

I did make it clear that when the surprise started, she would very definetely know it. If she ever thought to herself, “I wonder if this is part of the surprise?”, the answer had to be “No”, because I was going to make it VERY obvious when it did start.

The morning of Saturday July 19th, I woke her up about 3:30 AM and said “Get up and get dressed, your surprise is starting right now.” She asked if she should wear her work clothes, and I told her just to wear something casual, that we’d be back in time to change clothes before she had to go to work. Since she wasn’t going to be working again until Tuesday, I didn’t technically lie. I said not to worry about packing anything, just to get in the car so we can start the suprise. In the trunk of my car were two suitcases I had already packed with several changes of clothes for both of us. I had even purchased travel size toothpaste, toothbrushes, soaps, etc, so I could pack absolutely everything ahead of time without her noticing that stuff was missing from the bathroom.

We drove from our house in Beaverton to 26 East, then to 405 South, then to 5 North, then to 84 East, then to 205 North, the whole time trying not to be too obvious that we were heading in the direction of the airport. Once on 205, I tried to stay in the left lanes. Just when we were about to pass the off-ramp to PDX, I swerved across all lanes (remember, it was about 4:00 AM and the freeway was empty) and took the exit. She just about screamed, “I knew it! We’re flying somewhere!”

Read part two
Read part three
Read part four
Read part five

Entry Filed under: Fun, Bill, Kathy