Norm and Davy!

I had a devious plan. It was to organize a (reverse) surprise party for everyone (especially Norm). In fact, it was so devious that I had others do my bidding without knowing what it was for! Bwaa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Like the classical evil masterminds, I divulge my plans to you, dear readers. Here's what happened in chronological order.

Felix went to visit Davy in Seattle. Davy told Felix that he was quitting MS and coming back to Montreal. Felix told me, correctly surmising I would be ecstatic. I told Jorghnassen. Then Davy told Felix not to tell anyone. Of course, the buck stopped at Jorghnassen, since he was too busy to tell anyone else, but I was almost ready to publish a front page story in the National Post. :| In the end, we agreed not to tell anyone else since Davy wanted to surprise everyone.

The second step was to produce this surprise to everyone at the same time, otherwise it would have been impossible to keep it a secret from everyone. So I had to mastermind a party plan, which wasn't hard. The hard part was to get this plan going. I don't know how other people make parties in cities they don't currently live in, but I just had no bleeding clue.

Hence, the puppets! Now, Norm is usually the one who plans the gathering because he has the most contacts and the best ideas. On the other hand, it would be too much to ask him to do the arrangements, so I had sent out an email asking for suggestions. This was around 2 weeks ago, to ensure people would not make other plans for the event.

After a week of consultations, I was ready to get Jorghnassen to make reservations and I was about to send out a last email to confirm these things, but then Norm sent out an email to everyone, as he had gone out of his way to set up a reservation for us. He sent to people on and off the initial list (which I was expecting, since it would reach more people), thus started the confusions.

What works the best for surprises is to make sure that the planner is completely in control and the planees are not suspicious of anything off the mark. So I had to justify getting more seats than people had confirmed. (Of course, this led to more confusion after.)

In fact, it turned out no one had any idea who was coming because Norm had been waiting at the restaurant with place for exactly 8. I had counted 10, but I was also expecting more. The waiters didn't want to arrange for more if we weren't sure.

In the end, after Davy arrived (after running into Ivo and Donnah, of all things), we ended up being 14. That's the last time I'm going to organize these things! >:|

Anyway, it was enough to get (some sort of) reactions from everyone when Davy announced he quit MS. It was all worth it though to see Norm completely dumbfounded while he kept asking if we were all kidding him, and Davy showing him the newly signed lease to his new apartment downtown.

Yeah, all you suckaz who didn't make it, don't say I didn't tell you this stuff could never be repeated again. In verbatim:

It is also imperative that you attend (with whomever I haven't done
gone put on this mailing list), for the sake of an evening that will
never be reproducible again forever and ever. Even for the first two
hours or one hour. I'm serious!!! ... I mean, I'm serious.

I'm mostly sorry that I didn't write this in a 60 point font.