Liar, liar, pants on fire

Let me just say that this was a long grift. If you don't know what I mean, to grift is to con somebody. Sometimes this can be a short term lie or sometimes it can be a long term lie. Some lies you have to set up, prepare a mark (a.k.a. victim) with a couple of believable lies -- commiserate with them, make them feel like you're a victim of the same circumstances. A grifter is a con artist. I never knew I had skills like these. But I do. I have the gift of grift.

About 5 weeks before my husband's 40th birthday, I told Hubby that the church auction was coming up. The real auction was taking place a week before my husband's birthday, but I figured that he had heard some buzz about an auction coming up and that was enough to validate my story. When there are church events, our director of religious education, Sister Anna, will often pluck me out of the parking lot or even church, and ask me to help out. I told my husband (who rarely attends mass with me)that after mass, Sr. Anna had asked me if I would help out with the auction. I told him the auction was scheduled for his birthday so I wanted to clear it with him before I got back to her. He, being the good soul that he is, assured me that it was fine. I could help out if I wanted.

The following Thursday, I complained again to my husband. When I picked up the kids from CCD, Sister Anna saw me again and asked if I would be able to prepare some food for the auction. See, it is a money making endeavor, so to cut costs, they were asking parishioners to bring food. I said, "Can you believe that they're asking people to bring food? I mean, they're charging $75 per ticket in the first place." So he told me that it was a fund raiser. That I can't blame them for trying to raise money. He really defended the actions of Sr. Anna, even though she was being absolutely ridiculous.

Some time during the following week, I asked my mother (in front of Hubby) what she would like to prepare for the auction. We came up with lumpia and pancit. It is traditional to have noodles on your birthday for long life. And everybody loves my mom's lumpia. My husband likes having potatoes in lumpia (I know, it is totally unacceptable according to Mom) so as a birthday treat, I told him that I'd reserve some that didn't have shrimp in it (he doesn't eat bugs -- his words, not mine) and put potatoes in that batch.

About 2 weeeks before the auction I started telling my husband that people weren't buying auction tickets as well as they had hoped. "At $75 a peice, how can you blame them? I might be helping out but there is no way that I'm going to pay for tickets."

Here's the scary part. My whole plan may have fallen apart because my son's soccer team won their division championship. If they progressed through regionals, then the state championship game would be on my husband's birthday -- the day of the party. It is a very strange feeling -- the definition of conflicted -- because I wanted my son's team to succeed. Of course I did. But on the other hand, part of me wanted them to fail because my plan for the party was going so well. I had even thought to mention to another parent from our church whose kid plays with That not to talk about missing the church auction which happened on the day of the regionals. She was awesome and didn't say a word about it.

Sadly for my son, his team didn't win the regionals. Yay for me, but I didn't cheer. He took it in stride and actually had nothing but good things about playing soccer in the snow. "Mom, it was so cool because when you kicked the ball, it would grow into this huge snow ball, and when you kicked it again, snow would explode everywhere. COOL!"

We were still on for our party. Here was the clincher. I had come up with an excuse for me to be making mass quantities of food. I had come up with an excuse for my mother to come with me. But the whole deal was to get my husband to drive to our friends Steve & Sharon's house for the actual party. My mother was the weakest link of the whole thing.

Having already told my husband that tickets weren't selling well and that they were massively expensive, I had laid the groundwork. Now in for the kill. I waited until the Thursday before the party. That is the day the kids have CCD. My mom picked them up from church that day. So she had opportunity to do this act.

"Honey," I conspiratorially told my husband, "don't get upset but for your birthday, my mom bought the three of us tickets to the auction."

"She what?"

"I know. I know. I'm sorry. She didn't ask me but she thought it would be good because there will be entertainment and lots of food. She thought it would be fun for us to do."

"Oh man, I get to spend my fortieth birthday at a church auction. Are you kidding me?"

"I'm so sorry."

"Why don't you guys just go, you and your mom?"

"She bought 3 tickets."

"Well, who is going to watch the kids?"

"I talked to Sharon, and she said that she's having a holiday party for the kids from their church. She said 3 more kids wouldn't be a problem and there will be lots of fun things for them to do."

Defeated, my husband resigned himself to feign gratitude and excitement when my mother told him about the auction tickets.

I practiced with my mother over and over again. She said that maybe she should add that I'd take him out to dinner another day too. She also was trying to come up with what kind of entertainment would be at the auction. She was suggesting menus and coming up with the guest list of who would be at our table.

My mother doesn't lie. It doesn't come easy to her. In fact, I think it may cause her physical pain. But we went over it again and again, and finally she streamlined it down to, "For your birthday, I bought us tickets to the auction."

When it came time for her performance, it turned into this. Nervously, while my husband was in the other room, my mother said, "Oh, for your birthday, I bought us auction tickets. Is that alright? Maybe Tess can take you out for dinner another time. Is it okay?" I may have pushed her too far. It was really hard for her.

And delivering the best performance of his lifetime, my sweet husband walked back into the room where my mom was sitting and said, "You mean the church auction? That will be great. Thanks." He actually seemed to be happy. Later he asked me for his Oscar. It was maybe an Emmy. Not an Oscar.

The morning of his party, my husband woke up with a bad cough. I thought I was sunk. But instead, I quietly pressured him into going to the auction by saying, "Honey, I'll go to the church and Mom should stay home and watch the kids while you rest, and then when it is time for the auction, she can go to Sharon's and drop the kids off so you can sleep."

"But what about the tickets? Your mom paid so much money for them."

"Don't worry about that. It is your health, okay?"

"No, I'll go. It'll make your mom feel bad if I don't."

Everybody was in place, the cars were parked in the driveway, but that was explained away by the party Sharon was throwing. The guests and I were crouched behind sofas and the kitchen island waiting for Hubby to make an appearance. I was keeping a lookout. Sharon answered the door and chatted for what seemed to be at least 10 minutes in the entryway. My husband wouldn't come into the house! She finally coaxed him in with promises of bacon wrapped Ritz crackers as appetizers for the party. I saw him enter the living room and I turned to the rest of the guests, counted three, and popped up to yell, "Surprise!"

That was immediately followed by, "Where did he go?"

Turns out that my husband got to the living room and realized that he had forgotten the diaper bag. He was just about to the front door when he heard us yell, "Surprise!...Where did he go?" Bummer. But Sharon says that she could tell he was surprised because he stopped in his tracks. He came back into the living room and we all had suddenly appeared.

It was a great success. Our friend Marisa, stage name Samira, made an appearance belly dancing. That was great fun. My husband admitted to me later that he didn't know where he should look. Marisa is smoking hot and here she was dressed in a belly dancing outfit.He didn't want to look like a jerk and stare especially with me standing right there next to him, but he took it in great stride and Marisa got a few of us to try belly dancing too.

I had mistakenly ordered a carrot cake which has walnuts in it. I had forgotten to check. My husband has a sensitivity to walnuts so that was a big boo boo. But luckily, I had arranged for our friend Julia to make a Chocolate Torte Royale -- a dessert that my mother-in-law made for hubby for all of his childhood birthdays. You also should know that when I brought out the carrot cake and realized it had walnuts, the first words out of my husband's mouth were, "Well, you better make me a Chocolate Torte Royale."

It was a great party. We have awesome friends. I hope I did his 40th birthday justice.