Of Cluelessness and Surprises

The tail-end of last week was kinda hectic, non-work wise that is. We began rehearsals for Hamlet, which means there goes all assumed form of leisure and free-time. It's going to be a hectic rush to get ready under one month. During this time we've also had to say à bientôt to two of our T4YP-ers, Isabell and Sean.

Isabell has exams coming up and so has to concentrate on that while Sean's leaving for the States on the 21st for further studies. It was a Kleenex moment for two days. In the midst of planning for Sean's farewell we were reminded that another T4YP-er, Priya was having her birthday on Saturday, the same day we were planning a surprise farewell do for Sean.

I don't know about you but I LOVE giving surprises. It's a challenge to put something up and not have the recipient aware of it. In this regard, we decided to combine the two - farewell + birthday. We told Sean that the food and stuff was for Priya's surprise party and we told Priya that the cake and stuff was for Sean's farewell do. On hindsight, I realised that a few discrepancies should've given us away but thank god for clueless people.

On Saturday no one wished Priya, we casually went about rehearsals and gave her the impression that we all had no idea it was her birthday. We also made such a hoo-haa about hiding the food from Sean. At one point, when we got to the venue there was no way we could hide the food from him. At this point Priya looked at me and said, "well if he asks you can always say the food's for me". It took a HUGE effort not to burst out laughing I tell you. I just gave Priya the blank look. You know the one that emotes the expression, 'huh?". And she explained that it was her birthday that day. I then went with the shocked look (Let me just say that it was an Oscar-winning performance I gave throughout the 5 minutes) and to top it off (after all the I'm sorry I didn't know etc etc) I went, "Happy BELATED birthday"...and she said no it's not even belated, it's today. I was profusely apologetic and told her that we'd do a celebration for her soon. We were sooo caught up with Sean's farewell that we completely forgot her birthday. The gullible child bought it hook, line and sinker.

It was one for the memory book. I know it's kinda long-winded but I promised Priya this was going to be blogged for posterity. And so my work here is done. :-) Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post of the event.