Corey’s Surprise Birthday Dinner!

My brother Corey has been a constant reminder to me over the last year that we should appreciate what and who we have and stop wasting valuable time with people by holding grudges. I missed out on an entire three months with him because of some petty argument/miscommunication. I mean, I hate to have to stoop to Internet meme levels in order to convey my sentiments, but…ain’t nobody got time for that!

What better way to show him how appreciated and loved he is than by having a SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTY?! God, do I love planning surprises! However, everyone reacts differently to surprises so I figured I’d play it safe and go with a low-key surprise dinner at his favorite restaurant Bravo, rather than send out a mass invitation to every single person on his Facebook friends list and then have him be mortified.

Corey’s best friend Jackie was immediately on board and was my right-hand (wo)man for this endeavor. It was really fun having someone to help me, and also getting to know her better in the process. Corey is lucky to have a friend like her.

In the end, we were able to snag my dad; Aunt Susie and her husband Larry; and my awsome friends Janna and Christy, who have known Corey since he was born.  (Christy even married him in 1995. Don’t ask.)

We purposely didn’t tell Chooch it was a surprise because, well, kids. You can’t tell Chooch anything. So, as far as Corey (and Chooch) knew, it was going to be a nice, quiet birthday dinner with just me, Henry and Chooch. I was so worried that Corey would try to change plans around at the last minute, so I lied and told him we had reservations at 7, but the real reservations were at 6:45 and I was so nervous that someone would be late and he would see them.

Of course, as soon as we got there, we met up with Janna, which made Chooch cry, “You said no one else was coming!” So I decided perhaps it would be best for Janna and Chooch to just go inside and get the table so that he wouldn’t feel compelled to blurt out the dinner guests when he saw Corey.

Miraculously, everyone arrived and was at the table before 7!

Meanwhile, Henry and I were waiting for Corey outside.

“Where’s Chooch?” he asked, and I made up some lie about how he wasn’t feeling well and stayed at home with Henry’s mom. So then Chooch got to be part of the surprise too, which he loved.

Janna said while they were waiting at the table, he told her about how he was reading my Westmoreland County Fair photo book and that all of the funniest parts were about her. She was thrilled as usual.

Corey said first he saw our Aunt Susie and thought, “Oh what a coincidence. Susie is here for a dinner party.” He was genuinely surprised that this was all for him and I was so happy!

I haven’t thrown a good surprise party since high school, which is unbelievable to me because I love surprises so much. It was Janna’s 16th birthday and I decided that I wanted to have a surprise birthday dinner for her at ChiChi’s. My Pappap paid for most of it, but I decided to collect $5 from everyone who was coming (and there were a lot of people!). The money shakedown took place in the cafeteria, right in front of Janna, who told me later she just assumed I was selling drugs.

 

I just realized you can see idiot Henry with his idiot mouth open in the reflection in the photo above and now I can’t stop laughing at it because it looks like he has Moe hair.

Chooch was on comedic fire that night. Sometimes I just sit there and watch him, wishing I could be half that charismatic. He’s a true entertainer. Or the next Charles Manson, whichever.

My favorite part was when he told everyone that Henry has really hairy legs and used about 18 different words to describe them, and  then said, “Mommy is always saying she’s so fat, but then if I say she’s fat, she’s like GO TO YOUR ROOM. What the hell?”

I also found out that before Henry and I brought Corey in, Chooch introduced himself as “Leo” to Susie’s husband Larry. Larry, who had never met Chooch before, had  no reason not to believe this and then he got confused when Susie handed “Leo” a present which was supposed to be for Chooch.

Also, I guess Chooch will actually eat at a restaurant as long as he’s not sitting near his parents. Look at that spaghetti kebob he’s got going up there!

Chooch switched seats right away so that he could sit with Corey, but this also put him next to his godmother Christy, who is really good at tormenting little boys. She had A LOT of practice on both of my brothers! She kept trying to hug Chooch and he was acting like he was going to melt.

I couldn’t wait until after dinner; I gave Corey his presents as soon as we sat down. He had mentioned awhile back that he wanted one of my Snacks paintings, so I made him his own:

AND I framed a picture of The Broad for him!

Also included, as a little gag gift, was a bottle of sprinkles because Corey went through this phase in his younger years where he loved to drink sprinkles straight out of the bottle. I remember one night in particular, when he was around 10 or 11. It was one of the weekends when Henry had his kids (Robbie is the same age as Corey and Blake is only two years younger) so Corey decided to sleep over. It was definitely after 10PM and he had Henry driving around, trying to find a store that was open that sold sprinkles. I think this was a different night than the time Janna and I waited until almost midnight to decide that we wanted waffle sundaes so Henry had to go to the grocery store and buy everything on our list of demands. God, those were fun times.

The waiter hated us because it took us so long to order and then, god forbid, we weren’t all on one check, so I was too scared to ask him to take another with the flash on. Jackie said he’s a regular customer of hers at GNC so I’ll just leave it up to her to find a way to ruin his stupid protein-full life.

My favorite part of the night, aside from Corey being surprised, was when Janna got a stain on her shirt.

Happy birthday again, Corey!!