Todd Shaffer - It’s the Thought That Counts

 

All right. So, I did something awful to my wife on her 40th birthday. [audience laughter] The only thing she told me for her 40th birthday was that she didn't want to party. I decided that was a perfect time to inaugurate my party planning skills and invite 85 people to our house for a surprise birthday party. [audience reaction] I've never, ever planned anything like that before, anything of that scale, any party planning. It's really stressful, when you're trying to get everything together. I was at the end of my rope, because a surprise party is basically like a long format lie that you have to sustain up until you spring the surprise and see how it goes. 

 

I thought I had everything under control pretty well. Like, three days before the party, I come home from work, I walk in the door, and I can see a tarp in the kitchen, which isn't a good thing. I walk into the kitchen, and the wallpaper that had been on the wall that morning was hanging in strips on the floor. She said, "You know, there was a piece that was loose and I was sick of the wallpaper and I decided to just take it down." [audience chuckles] The 15-year-old neighbor's daughter is standing behind her mouthing, "Oh my God.” [audience laughter] Like, that's going to help. 

 

And just to make sure that I run upstairs and hang myself, she goes, "I ordered 15 yards of mushroom manure for the landscaping. It's going to be here any minute. I told them to put it in the driveway." [audience laughter] So, she said, "We're not doing anything this weekend. We can paint the kitchen." [audience reaction] And I said, "Well, if we're painting the kitchen this weekend, maybe we don't need the mushroom manure. How about if I try to cancel that." And of course, it's too late, so I have to run outside-- I'm still in a suit. I run outside, I'm in the lot, in the vacant lot next door with a lawnmower running over bricks and rocks, trying to make a spot, so at least the horse shit isn't in the driveway [audience chuckles] where people have to walk through and come back in. 

 

She's got all the paint chips laid out on the counter. She decided she wanted to paint the kitchen orange, which normally I would oppose with every fiber of my being, because orange is a safety color. It's not a kitchen color. [audience laughter] So, she's got all these laid out there. She points to this hideous orange, and I go, "That's great. I'm going to go get the paint right now." [audience laughter] So, I leave. I leave, and I'm backing out of the driveway, and I look over and it's literally steaming. There's this steaming mountain of horseshit [audience laughter] that's mocking me from the lot, saying, "I'm a metaphor for the next few days of your life." [audience laughter]

 

So, we're working on the kitchen, and it's 11 o’ clock, and she goes, "I'm going to go to bed." I was totally strung out and exhausted, but I'm like, "You know, I have a second wind. I think I'm going to work." So, I stay up all night, and I work all night, go to work the next morning, come home, start working in the kitchen, and that night, same thing. She's like, "I'm going to bed." I said, "I'm doing all right. I'm going to stay up for a little bit." I worked the entire night. 

 

So, the morning of the party, the kitchen's done. It's painted like this horse colon orange. [audience laughter] And so, she leaves with a couple of her friends. They go to this day spa thing. My kids knew that she'd want to party. I tell my kids, "We're having a surprise party for mommy." My eight-year-old immediately goes, "Mom doesn't want a party. Why are we having a party?" [audience laughter] I'm going to tell them the truth. I go, "Look, for a nanosecond, I thought it was a good idea, and I started inviting people, and it got completely out of control, [audience laughter] and that's how the last two world wars started, and we're just going to do it." [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause] 

 

I can tell, they're thinking, "Mommy's going to kill Daddy. Mommy's going to go to jail. What are we going to do?" [audience laughter] I said, "Just stop crying, and clean. Help me out." [audience laughter] She ends up coming back directly on time. It happens to be the same time a late arriving guest is standing in the front yard holding a potted plant, like an inexplicable sight. Like, [unintelligible 00:29:35] [audience laughter] and the catering truck pulls up at the same time. She still doesn't get that there's a surprise party going on. I fly out the door [audience laughter] to the woman with the potted plant, "Hey, come on in." 

 

I walk and I ask the girls, "What's with that truck?" Like, they're going to know. I said, "I'll find out." So, I go over to him and I said, "It's a fucking surprise party that's just being surprised. Drive away," [audience laughter] which he does and I catch up to them back at the door. We walk in, and 85 people jump out and scream, "Surprise" I could tell by the look on her face that she would have been happier if they would have yelled, "Surprise" continued past her and sporked me into little bits [audience laughter] and said, "We're leaving now. We know you don't want us here." al

 

The party actually went really well. My wife pretended to have a great time, [audience laughter] and everybody else did have a great time. I thought that she would see how well the party was going, and all her friends were there, and everything would be fine. But she did really manage to hold a grudge to this very day. [audience reaction] [audience laughter] I'm not kidding. [audience chuckles] Really the moral of the story, is if you're going to have a surprise party, this is really more of a public service announcement than a story. If you're going to have a surprise party, don't do it. There's more productive things you can do with your time. You can volunteer. [audience laughter] Don't let friends have surprise parties.