The Philadelphia Story

In honor of our ten year anniversary this week, a walk down memory lane (also known as Holy Cow We Were Young or Why Didn't Anyone Tell Me I Was Plucking My Eyebrows Too Much?):

David and I like to surprise each other. Most of the surprises we have concocted over the years have been great (like the time David filled all the egg slots in the fridge with Cadbury eggs), but there have been a handful that didn't work out so well and one or two that might have been slightly traumatizing (let's just say the time David came home from work early, parked the car on the other side of our house so I wouldn't see it when I got home, reset the security system, and waited patiently in our bedroom while I went about my post-work routine unaware of his presence did not produce the desired result when he jumped out to surprise me. He thought I would be thrilled to see him home early - and I was - but he scared me so badly I ended up sobbing for half an hour as I recovered from the I'm-about-to-be-murdered adrenalin burst. Poor guy, he felt terrible!)

So, we have learned a few things over the years about the art of surprise: no jumping out of closets or yanking back shower curtains, chocolate = a great gift, and my personal favorite: never try to surprise your spouse when it involves significant travel.

Story time:

Let's go back nine years, circa summer of 2002. David and I had been married one year and were in the middle of our first east coast adventure. We were living with my sister and her husband in Philadelphia while we painted their house. As I wrapped up work on the final rooms, David headed to a week long internship training in Florida. The plan was that we would meet in Washington, DC after he completed his training and I had completed the paint job, and then we would live there for the rest of the summer while he interned.

The day before we planned to meet up, my sister suggested going down to Washington early. Great idea, I thought. David's flight was scheduled to arrive that night and he planned to drive straight to our new apartment. If I went down early, I could surprise him there when he came home! So we packed up and headed down to DC that afternoon.

Well, you can guess what happened next. We were about fifteen minutes from our new apartment in DC when my sister's cell phone rang. It was David.

Calling from Philadelphia.

He had been so excited to see me that he decided he couldn't wait another night, so he drove three hours to Philadelphia to surprise me. We had literally passed each other on the road somewhere in our efforts to be romantic.

My brother-in-law thought it was hilarious. I thought it was a tragedy of epic proportions and spent the evening hiccuping my way through a near-constant waterfall of tears.

My mom said I would laugh about it someday, but honestly, nine years later it's still a little traumatizing.

No more travel-related suprises for us.