It's my BIRTHDAY!!! Part 1: The Plan

We had to do it.

Kofa and I have birthdays only 3 days apart, we had to join forces to throw the mother of all parties. Angelika and I used to celebrate our birthdays together because our birthdays were only one day apart and the parties were good, so this needed to be better. It needed to be the best birthday party I ever had or I might have risked the ultimate of birthday depressions. This wasn’t going to happen to me. Not on this day. Not with Kofa backing me up.

As you know, I am meticulous about planning every step I take. It’s the only way I can control the chaotic nature of my personality. So in one of our lazy couch days, Kofa and I began our brainstorming session.

We needed a theme. We needed something that would stick out in the minds of everyone who attended. We needed to guarantee a good time. We must have run through every possible scenario but nothing seemed amazing.

One of our failed ideas was to have a roller skating throw back party. The good old fashioned 4 wheeled beauties we all grew up in. Have everyone show up in their freshest 80’s gear to rock out to some of the freshest 80’s tunes, but the logistics of it, and the lack of being able to get completely inebriated quickly shot down that idea.

The next idea we had was to rent out one of those kids party places. You know the ones where they are already pre-decorated in Winnie the Pooh cartoons and streamers and balloons with confetti. Yeah, we wanted to rent those out, get all the kid party favors and noise makers and even a great big cake, but I’m positive the owners of the place would have rejected the idea of serving booze to adults at a kids place as we adults have been known to act irresponsibly under the influence of booze.

Finally it dawned on me. A Kissing Contest. No, not some free for all where everyone gets to kiss everyone, more like some self serving, indulgent, booze fueled contest where everyone gets to kiss me and Kofa. I think it took us .00000234 seconds to agree on it and almost immediately we began planning the process.

It’s really kind of sad how excited we got over the prospect of kissing strangers and friends. Suddenly we realized that this could be the one time we get to cross that “friend” boundary. You know, the “I’ll never do anything with you because you’re my friend and I don’t want to blur the line” one? It seemed like we just discovered the hall pass that allowed that very thing. Not to mention… we tore open the fabric of the space time continuum with this concept because we quickly realized that even friends/chicks that had boyfriends would be willing to suspend reality for a moment to complete the kiss. After all it was for our birthdays and for the love of the game and plus “he’s just a friend; I would never under any other circumstance.” We eliminated guilt. It was our very own e=MC2. I’m not Einstein, but I did visit his home once when I was young and really, I think that’s where I get my brilliance from. I digress.

The rules were simple. A peck on the lips was worth 1 point. A French kiss was worth 3 points. A 3 ways kiss was worth 10 points.

So how do we keep track of all the points especially if we are boozing? Simple we keep a tally. We designed shirts with a tally board on the back that each kisser could mark with a permanent marker after each kiss. On the front of Kofa’s shirt was a picture of him with words that read “Kiss me or the Terrorists will win.” On the front of my shirt was a picture of me with words that read “Kiss me on the lips, it’s my birthday.”

Genius if I do say so myself.

The next part of this whole equation is to make sure we had a good venue. We searched high and low for places that wouldn’t charge a cover, that would play the kind of music we like, and that would be able to hold our massive guest list. We came up short. We could not find a spot. That is until my friend Loki invited me to a party he was Dj’ing at. When I saw it, I realized it was perfect. I love his music, the place was cool, it had room, and there was no cover. Problem solved. Not to mention that literally half a block down was another spot that would make an excellent backup in the case of overcrowding. Location situation settled.

The last piece of the whole equation was to invite everyone we knew. After all was said and done, With Kofa and my list together we invited over 200 people and we figured maybe 1/8th of that list would come. Everything was coming together.

There was one small detail I had to address. I had to let Angelika know that I was throwing a massive party and that I would have it without her. I did this out of courtesy. I didn’t want her to feel shitty about not being invited. So I called her.

This guy: “Hey Angelika, how are you?”

Angelika: “Good what’s up?”

This guy: “Listen, I just wanted to let you know, are birthdays are coming up and I am planning a party. I am not inviting you not to be an ass, but because I just want to enjoy myself on that day, and I know having you there would make that virtually impossible.”

Angelika: “I totally understand. I think we should just do our own thing. It’s ok, don’t worry.”

This guy: “Thanks babe, listen, we can still have a little birthday celebration just between the 2 of us. Maybe we can do dinner or something.”

The word “Babe” always slips out of my mouth when I talk to her. It was engrained in my mind.

Angelika: “Yeah, that’s cool.”

This guy: “Cool, well let me let you go and we’ll talk soon.”

As soon as I hung up I felt as if I shouldn’t have asked her for a mini birthday dinner celebration between the 2 of us, but I couldn’t fight the compulsion. A big part of me still wanted her company. That was a feeling that was proving difficult to shake.

Anyhow, with those hurdles cleared. We were cleared for lift off. Invites went out. Shirts arrived from the designer. And the countdown began.

As days passed we started watching the RSVP’s list grow. At first if was cool. Then it became a bit of a problem. The RSVP list was growing exponentially every day. We thought that maybe 30 plus people would show, but we were clear past that number and we had yet to hear from the majority of the list. People wanted into this party in a big way.

While I’d love to think that its are dazzling good looks that drove the RSVP list, I would venture to say that it was probably the fact that we have great friends that would go out of their way to watch the spectacle that Kofa and I were about to make of ourselves. See what we didn’t do is tell people that we were conducting a kissing contest. When the invites went out, we alluded to a contest but we never told them it was a kissing contest. Everyone was calling wondering what it was about, all we would tell them was to bring plenty of chapstick. We would hint at it, but never quite told them. Somehow they didn’t figure it out.

Rumors and hype began to circulate amongst our friends. It was funny to see what our friends thought we would do and at that point we realized that we created a monster. We decided to let a few key people in on the secret to do some damage control and to keep the rumor mills.

The RSVP list kept growing.

People that have partied with Kofa and I knew that we do it big when we go out, They knew this one would be super big.

By the time the RSVP list hit 80 people, we had to make use of the second location. So the plan now became to have everyone start at the Red Ox (location one) and then later move over to Lavaplique (location 2). So any late arriver should go straight to Lavaplique. It sounded complicated but we could swing it.

All we had to do now was wait until our birthday arrived.

Reader, I know I have been slow to post lately and let me just say, not a lot has been going on to write about… that is until recently. So stay tuned as I wrap up the birthday festivities where I get into trouble as only I know how. And once the birthday story is over… I can get you all caught up with 2 new girls and someone that I’ve mentioned before. Oh yeah… and I REALLLY fuck up a primo situation.