Many people love surprises on their birthdays and they cherish them so greatly for the rest of their lives. However, many people hate being surprised, and something generally goes haywire whenever people jump out and yell surprise. What is the worst surprise reaction that you have seen or that you have experienced yourself?
On my 15th birthday, my Guardian Ad Litem showed me this cute restaurant and I thought that we were going to have a nice quiet lunch together. It turned out to be an ambush. Social workers, volunteers ,foster care workers and even my family therapist jumped out and yelled "surprise". I was so bitterly disappointed that I wasn't having a quiet day with my Guardian Ad Litem that I cried and waited to go back to the group home. Surprise parties are kind of douche-y.
Well, it was an awfully long time ago, but when I had just started second grade my family was living in Puerto Rico. An only child, I was always excited to get to do things with other kids. One week I went to two different birthday parties and had the best time. Then one morning of the next week my mom was taking me to school and she told me that it was my birthday but not to expect a party because I hadn't been good enough to get one. Hopeful when she said it was my birthday, I was crushed by the time she'd finished. Truly crushed. I was sad and miserable all day long wondering what I had done not to get a birthday party. After school mom picked me up and I was still miserable. She said we weren't going home right away but were going to stop off at the home of another one of the American families who were in Puerto Rico at that time with Phillips Fibers. When we got there just about every one of the other little American kids in the Phillips group was there and they all yelled "Surprise" and "Happy Birthday" when I entered the carport. All I could do was bawl and the words saying that it couldn't be my party because I hadn't been good enough just wouldn't come out of my mouth. I was afraid, too, that I was going to be in trouble somehow because of it. Even after mom explained that it was my party and that she had said what she had that morning just so I'd be surprised I wasn't able to really enjoy it. Instead I just felt ashamed for some reason and unsure of the whole thing. I even remember mom crying and some of the other women talking to her and I have no doubt they wondered the same thing I wondered many years later. What was in mom's mind when she told me what she had that morning? After all, I wouldn't have even known it was my birthday if she hadn't told me. Definitely the worst surprise I ever had.
Thankfully I have not been subjected to a surprise party, but I have had a number of gifts that were definitely surprises, and not good ones. I have an aunt who has never accepted me for who I am, and even as a young girl she was trying to get me to do things I did not want to do or talk me into dressing in styles I did not want to wear. She once gave me several pairs of nylons for Christmas, knowing I had no desire to wear nylons at all, I preferred microfiber tights. The next year she gave me a blouse that was far too low cut for me to be comfortable in and the fabric and cut just said "sexy" to me, which was humiliating because I would never, NEVER even let my dad see me in something like that.
