Dave T's Pros and Cons of Stuff Everyone Has: Surprises
BOO!
Didn’t expect that to be the first word of this blog entry did you? That’s what makes it a SURPRISE.
Don’t know what it is?
A surprise is something you don’t see coming. It is the unexpected. The end.
Pros:
• Some people really love planning surprise parties; it’s the closest they get to being a spy. I remember my parents simultaneously planning separate surprise parties for each other when they turned fifty. My brother and I were involved in the planning for both, and it involved so much lying that I eventually had to make up an entire fake life to support all the fabrications I’d made.
And some people really love having surprise parties thrown for them, love that moment when they walk in and see everyone is there just for them and all this planing was for their benefit.
• A really really old person can die from a big surprise. And that can be great if you didn't like that particular wrinkled demon.
• If you’re the underdog in a fight, the element of surprise can help you win. Same goes for major military battles.
• Without surprises, we wouldn’t have that moment on Maury when he says, “Tevin, you are… NOT the father!” and everyone goes batshit and Tevin is whooping the air like he’s on Arsenio and the baby’s mama is crying. That's must see TV.
• Surprises are what keep books interesting. They are also what keep people interesting. And life.
• As a kid, I really loved that joke that ended with the Chinese guy jumping out and yelling “Supplies!”
I guess I was a racist child.
Total Pros: 6
Cons:
• I hate surprise parties. (I didn’t like planning the surprise parties for my parents, I just enjoyed the constant lying.) I don't know why. Especially if they're for me. I'd rather know ahead of time that a party is coming and I'm gonna have a great time. And I don't want to think I'm going to a baby shower for my cousin and then find out it's a surprise party for me. What if I was all excited to go to the baby shower because I was looking forward to making my cousin a paper plate bow hat, and now instead it's just hundreds of dollars of presents for me, my favorite foods, and a stripper who looks like a real-life version of Ariel from The Little Mermaid. What a letdown!
• A really really old person can die from a big surprise. And that sucks if you liked that particular now-dead oldster.
• Many surprises can be terrible. For instance, walking in on your wife making love to your great uncle.
Or when your wife has a baby and it comes out black and you’re not black—though that really only seems to happen on TV and in the movies.
Or finding out your son is the Makes-Them-Watch-Him-Eat-Their-Feet-Before-He-Beheads-Them serial killer.
Or coming home from a long day working at Motel 6 and opening your closet and finding the Makes-Them-Watch-Him-Eat-Their-Feet-Before-He-Beheads-Them serial killer hiding in there with kethcup, some cutlery, and a machete.
• M Night Shyamalan’s movies wouldn’t have gotten progressively worse if he weren’t so obsessed with having a surprise ending.
Bruce Willis was dead the whole time?.....Nice.
Samuel L. Jackson was the villain the whole time?.....Not bad.
When you’re dying wife was pinned to a tree, all the random things she said turned out to be prophecies?.....What?
There are no monsters and everyone’s pretending it’s the 1800s when it’s really present day?.....Go to hell.
(If you’ve never seen any of these movies, I sincerely apologize for ruining the first two for you, and you’re welcome for having no need to see the rest.)
• Whenever the word “surprise” is added to the end of a meal’s name, that meal will be gross. Chewy Chunk Tuna Wheat Grass Casserole Surprise? I’m not eating that.
• Sometimes a guy has a date with an attractive girl, and they go back to his place, and they make out, and then the guy reaches down and feels a surprise wiener in the girl’s crotch. Now, maybe the guy is like, “Oh cool!” But most likely he’s gonna be scared and nervous and filled with self-loathing and homophobia, and will maybe vomit. The guy might even punch this chick who failed to mention that her sentence ends in a dangling participle. Then the guy-girl is beaten up and maybe the guy-guy is going to jail for a hate crime. Lose-lose.
• Pop quizzes are a form of surprise, and as far as I’m concerned pop quizzes can go eff themselves in whatever orifice a quiz might have.
Total Cons: 7
So, 6 pros, 7 cons, I'm not surprised. But I’m keeping surprises because life would be so boring without them. However, I want it known that for the most part I hate surprises.
As a kid, I thought the Pulitzer Prize was the Pulitz Surprise. And I was fascinated by what that surprise might be. It excited me to think that if you wrote something really great, you could get some cool surprise; it gave me hope that adulthood still had some of the thrills of childhood. Once I found out that it was prize and not surprise, I was never the same. Maybe that’s why I hate them. Not sure.
I bet you didn’t see that picture of James Caan coming. Surprise!
‘Til next time, Ciao!
Dave T
Dave Terruso is half of the sketch comedy duo Animosity Pierre.