created 2025-03-09, & modified, =this.modified
Two people I know are retiring so there’s planning going on to host a surprise party, with the idea that one person will think the party is for the other person, when it is actually for them.
I made a joke that we should also celebrate someone else, who happens to have an adjacent birthday on the same day as a kind of third surprise.
Then I wondered if we could make a surprise party that had an element to surprise for everyone. If nothing notable was happening, minor facets of life could be surprise celebrated. Everyone thought they were on the inside of the operation, but they were actually on the outside with a surprising lying in wait.
The entire surprise would spread, capturing each participant. We might not even end up celebrating, just enveloping the globe in a spreading, viral wave of inclusion in this surprise celebration, leaping at people in the street, covering them with praise and ribbons and saying “surprise, you’ve been included in the celebration.”
I dislike surprise parties.