The answer is no one and that's okay. My birthday usually an after-thought with a quick trip to Wal-mart the night before or that morning. But surprisingly, this year was a bit different...
As I was getting ready to leave the house this morning, my phone rang. That's odd, I thought. In the past two months I've gotten a lot of phone calls but never this early in the morning, and the source of those calls isn't here anymore so it can't be that...
It was an anonymous caller just wanting to wish me a happy birthday. Thanks, Aunt Jane (I recognized the voice and then googled her employer just to confirm the phone number.) While she was talking to me, I got another phone call which went to voice mail. When I hung up with the first call, I started to check voice mail but in doing so my phone rang again. Now, I might have born at night (4PM is close enough, right?) but it wasn't last night. No one ever calls me. Aunt Jane never calls me. People know not to call me. Someone set them up to this...
But I was on my way out the door and we have dumb phones so I couldn't log on to The Good Doctor's Facebook account to see what he had done. And here I was being a nice Mom-of-specal-needs-child and visiting an education class at Messiah College so the students could gawk at my screaming, arm biting (his own), toy banging child while trying to ask me questions over the commotion (I tried to warn the professor that this would best be done sans child but she insisted it'd be good for the students to see him in action - well, they got a good show and if you don't count tuition, it was free, too!) and all the while my phone was in my pocket just vibrating away. A good excuse to let them all go to voicemail.
I came home and immediately opened The Good Doctor's Facebook account, while my phone continued to vibrate. Nothing came up on his page but a quick look at his messages showed me what I was looking for. As most of the United States apparently already knows, you were contacted by my daughter on Wednesday with this message:
I have a favor to ask of you. Tomorrow is my amazing mother's birthday. She is an amazing and strong woman and had been the past few months... But she is also a prankster... Always. So I have an idea that I would LOVE you ALL to help me with...
My mom is an introvert and doesn't like talking on the phone. Please do me a favor and CALL her to wish her a happy birthday tomorrow. If she doesn't pick up leave a voicemail
I know some of you are my friends and may not know my mom but that will make this all the funnier. Thank you all for helping me out with this... I've never pulled off a prank with my mother so I would love this. Don't let her know this was sent to you by me I'd love for her to get 50 phone calls... Especially from random people
Here is her number: [removed to protect my sanity].
Happy calls! Thanks!!
Only my dear daughter had her days mixed up so as everyone was singing her praises about what a great idea this was, they were about to prank me on the wrong day. Until someone saved the day:
MARIANA!!!!! HER BIRTHDAY IS FRIDAY, NOT THURSDAY. FRIDAY THE 30TH, OK EVERYONE!
Okay, now I was laughing hysterically and since Victor was the only other person home, he kept asking, "Is Mommy laughing?" But then I laughed so hard I cried:
Mariana, you have celebrated the last 17 birthdays of your mother. Can we call tomorrow, wish her a happy birthday and then tell her that you messed up the date?
Now Victor wanted to know, "Is Mommy crying?" Gotta love Andrew. A man after my own heart - knowing how to prank the prankster. But everyone figured out the confusion and did indeed call on the 30th. My apologies to all y'all but after picking up for the first 2 callers (first and third if you count that voice mail in-between), I had reached my phone speaking quota for the month so the rest of you had to go to voice mail. Thankfully I decided to listen to all of them after supper because I was informed that my voice mail was full and I needed to delete some of my messages.
I can't tell you how many times I heard Happy Birthday on my phone today. Two of you googled the same song off of the internet somewhere. Some of you can sing. Some of you can't. And no, Uncle Jim, your rendition of the birthday song did not win you a place in The King's Strings. Stick to driving our bus. There's always next year, though. Keep practicing.
Loving a good prank, and knowing that someone took the time, ahead of time, to plan for my birthday (even if it was the wrong birthday) was very special and so thank you, Mariana. And the calls, from my voice mail, were all very fun to listen to. I did feel very blessed, loved, and encouraged today. Even if Victor only cared about the donut after the singing this morning.
And I got to go to Shady Maple Smorgasbord. And jump on the back of the cart while The Good Doctor pulled it through the parking lot. So it was a good day. Even if Facebook sent me an ad to buy a sweatshirt that said, "Never dreamed I'd be a sexy Grandma with a special education degree but here I am killing it." No fair that they took my information and assumed that at my age and with a few gray hairs here and there (HopeAnne says I have four) I must be a grandma! For shame.
Oh, and Mariana, just wait til April Fools Day... (It is, by the way, just 154 days away.)
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