I was excited to celebrate my first birthday as a wife. While I was sad to be away from home, my wonderful friends surprised me with a party in Wichita a couple days before my actual birthday. It was pretty common for us to have dinner with friends on Johnie's days off work. My birthday week was no exception. We made plans with friends as usual. I really thought nothing of it. On the day we were to go out, however, I wasn't feeling very well. I thought about calling to reschedule or cancel. But, not one to really want to miss a chance to hang out with friends, decided to go ahead anyway.
After dinner, we walked over to another friend's house for dessert. While we had never actually done this before, I again didn't think too much of it. We had several friends in this neighborhood and we would all get together at various houses and sometimes walk or drive between houses for various reasons during visits.
At this point things stopped making as much sense to me. First of all, there were several desserts. Sometimes our friends are overzealous in their cooking, and they had prepared my favorite dessert (blackberry cobbler) along with others. I thought this might be because Johnie hates blackberry cobbler, but my friend, Teresa, said, "I hope this is enough" and didn't sound sarcastic. I told her I definitely thought it would be enough. She also must have noticed me scrutinizing the chairs that were sitting out. She had put out extra chairs and there were way more chairs than there were people. Teresa said that her other daughter and her family would be joining us as well. We still had too many chairs for even them, but I decided to let the matter drop.
Things became even more strange when I saw Johnie's parents pull up outside. They knew we were having dinner over there that evening, but it was very strange for them to show up. Johnie's grandfather had been sick and my stomach dropped. I was afraid they had come to deliver bad news. Our friends welcomed them in and everyone began to visit like this was a normal thing. I thought maybe our friends were just really good at being super friendly to unexpected visitors. I also thought it pretty strange when my in-laws handed me a birthday card. I knew my birthday was really soon, but it felt awkward for them to give it to me at our friend's house.
It wasn't until several other friends started arriving a couple minutes later - all with cards and presents - that I realized what was going on. It was a wonderful and touching surprise. My first ever surprise party, and it felt like retribution for childhood parties that I would plan and hope for and then cry when none of my friends showed up. Now I had a whole house full of friends and family celebrating with me in this new place. All the presents helped, too. :)
Johnie made plans for the two of us to celebrate on my actual birthdate. When the day came, I had beautiful flowers delivered to my door, and we had dinner plans that night after Johnie got off work. Johnie called me that morning, though, to let me know he was coming home early. That sounds really sweet on the surface, but this wasn't nearly as pleasant a surprise as my party had been.
He was coming home because he needed a shower. Johnie was working as a field technician for the cable company which can be a messy job. He had come home to change and shower on a couple occasions after a particularly muddy call. I was not looking forward to mud-caked laundry on my birthday. But a couple minutes into the phone call, I would have gladly taken it.
Johnie was caked in something other than mud. He had entered a crawlspace that housed a broken sewer line. I met him at the back door with a water hose. After a good dousing, he took off his boots outside (those boots never came back in my house) and stepped inside the door where I quickly discarded his clothes.
This was easily the grossest day of our marriage, and really soiled my day.
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