Surprise, surprise

The element of surprise is a powerful thing. From famous battles turning the tides of war because one side ambushed another to a play called “fake punt toast” leading to a state championship for Colby football in 1998, there are many applications for the element of surprise.

This weekend, I think I’m going to be surprised a lot. It’s a month until Kaitlyn and my wedding and my bachelor party is this weekend. I don’t know what the plan is for the weekend because my groomsmen have done a pretty bang-up job keeping it a secret.

I’m probably the worst person you could try to surprise because I look at it as a challenge to try and figure out what is going on or what is in the Christmas present before the event actually happens. It surprises me if I’m actually ever surprised if that surprisingly makes sense. At first, they wouldn’t even tell Kaitlyn anything out of fear that she would spill the beans and blow the whole operation. They also made a rule that if anyone gave away what we were doing, they had to pay for the whole hotel.

It seems like every week I had either one of my groomsmen or his significant other asking me if I was excited. I responded with, “As excited as I can be when I don’t know what we’re actually doing!” These questions made me wonder if I could actually find out some of what will be going on.

Over the course of the last two or three months, I’ve been able to get small details out of some of the groomsmen as I do small interrogations to see what I should be prepared for.

First, I had found out that we would be going golfing on Friday during the day. That was a welcome detail as I now knew I needed to pack my clubs, golf shoes and the proper outfit for the occasion. Next, I tried to find out where exactly we were going. I had narrowed it down to somewhere in the state which didn’t give me a great idea of where I could expect to go but it was something.

I then was able to squeeze out of someone that we weren’t in fact staying in a hotel but instead, it was an Airbnb. But even then, I was relatively in the dark on where we were going.

Then, one day when I was hanging out with a friend who isn’t in the wedding party, he said, “So are you going to enjoy your time in Green Bay next month?” BOOM.

So now, I know we’re golfing on Friday and staying at an Airbnb in Green Bay on Friday and Saturday night. That’s a pretty good start but I believe the rest will actually be a surprise now that we’re days away from the party.

SPEEDING

THROUGH

L

IFE

NEAL H OGDEN EDITOR