Introvert Surprise Party

            As a reclusive introvert, I’ve never seen the appeal of surprise parties. Colleen, on the other hand, has always wanted one – although, like me, she isn’t really much of a party person. So, I came up with a clever solution. It does require some lucky circumstances for it to play out properly, but here it is: My instructions on how to throw an introverted surprise party.

1.      1. Do not plan a party. Parties are terribly dull things.

2.      2. Wait for the party’s recipient to make social plans with the type of friends they would want invited to a party. It can be just a simple get-together, or perhaps plans for some form of activity (such as playing Dungeons & Dragons).

3.      3. Find a good time, such as the night before the get-together, to sneakily by a cake. Hide it somewhere where it won’t be found before the not-a-party. Leaving it in a car is a good option, if possible – especially if you can conveniently leave something else in the car that will give you a good excuse to go out and get the cake.

4.      4. On the day of the party, wait for the appropriate time to reveal that this is, in fact, a party. To do this, you will require the cake. It may be beneficial to move the cake to an indoors hiding place, as candles don’t necessarily fare that well outside.

5.      5. Sneak to the cake’s hiding place, insert and light candles, then quietly approach the gathering of people from a direction that the attendees will spot you before the party’s recipient does.

6.      6. Wait patiently for the guests to notice you’re holding a flaming cake in plain view.

7.      7. Join in the singing when the guests inevitably start.

8.      8. Surprise!

9.      9. Continue on with the get-together plans as if nothing were different – except now there’s cake. After all, why spoil perfectly good plans by changing them?

And, thus, you have created a perfect, introverted surprise party so thoroughly that no one except you even knew it was a party. Pretty surprising, right?

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Anecdotes and Profoundness

            I decided that, this week, I should write something profound.

            Something profound.

            There, now that that’s out of the way, I can get on to other things, such as boring you with pointless anecdotes. Let’s just reach into my memory and pull one out. Ouchouchouch, I said a memory, not my whole brain!

            One feature that has defined me for my entire life is that I'm stubborn. Strong willed, my mother calls it. One thing I've always been a stickler about is only partaking in entertainment I enjoy. For this reason, I started saying of movies and books, “No swords, no magic – no good.” Now, my tastes aren't actually that strictly limited, but it’s a good starting point for understanding what I like.

            In grade 10, I ran into a bit of a problem with this. For the English curriculum, we were required to read and review three books throughout the semester. At least one needed to be fiction and one non-fiction. Wellll, I didn't really like that arrangement, so I did what I felt was the next best thing – I reviewed two fantasy novels and one science fiction. Close enough, right?

            After submitting the final review I waited and waited for the teacher to say something to me about it. She never did. I passed with flying colours and never had to worry about it. I always wondered if she hadn't noticed or if I was just such a great student that she’d let it slide (I still remember when she gave us a grammar quiz to see what we knew – I was the only one who got 100% and she was appalled at how lowly everyone else had scored, so she told me to read a book or do whatever I liked while she taught everyone else how to grammar).

            Two years later, I got the opportunity to ask her. You should have seen the look on her face! I’d managed to slide the fiction reviews past her without her noticing. I can’t remember exactly what she said to me, but I'm sure the word “sneaky” was used.

            The moral of the story is that teachers are busy and don’t have the time or memory to check on minor details, so read whatever you like. Although, I have to admit, the following year my grade 11 English teacher (who had been my Grade 10 Latin teacher and was currently my Grade 11 Latin teacher) put a lot of work in and managed to get me to read a non-fiction book – The Devils’ Horsemen, which was a wonderful book about Genghis Kahn.

            There, I've both shared an anecdote and said something profound. That makes a good blog, right? See you next week!

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.