Every now and then you hear someone say they don’t like surprises and I, for one, think those people are crazy — I love surprises. To my way of thinking, if you constantly know everything that’s headed your way, life can get pretty boring.
Surprises add that little extra kick — the unknown variable in the otherwise mundane — that keeps the days interesting from one to the next.
It keeps you on your toes.
My dad has a tendency to surprise me. A lot.
After he retired last year, my dad has taken to unexpectedly showing up at my house. Now, for a lot of people that wouldn’t be such a shock, but my dad lives 600 miles away in Pennsylvania.
On Thursday, as I was coming home from work, there was his car, just sitting in the driveway.
Surprise!
It’s actually the second time this year he’s done this — and we’re only four months in.
On Saturday I had a couple of events I needed to cover but the cool thing about my job is the ability to take a “work day” and include my family. So my dad, the kids and I headed out to Central for the railroad festival for a few hours and then swung by the airport for the Meals on Wheels thingy on the way home.
We also stopped by the grocery store with the intention of grilling steaks the following night. Of course the next night, the weather wasn’t exactly cooperating …
It rained all freaking day.
Surprise!
To make matters worse, the gutter above the back door to our house needs replaced and even if it’s only sprinkling a little bit outside, the roof runoff creates a waterfall that you have to run through to reach the back yard.
I braved the waterfall, finally got the grill lit, and got the steaks on.
I dashed back inside and set a timer to tell me when to flip them so I didn’t have to stand out there in the rain manning the grill.
But when the timer went off and I went back out (through the waterfall) to check the steaks, I discovered something else: the propane tank was empty.
Surprise!
Once upon a time, finding a propane tank at nine o’clock on a Sunday night may have been a tricky problem to solve. Luckily for me, the gas station down the street has them. Crisis averted.
I hooked the new tank up, re-lit the grill and set my timer again.
Now, I use our grill all the time. Burgers, hot dogs, chicken, corn on the cob — you name it. But apparently, our propane tank has been low for quite some time. With a fresh tank on there, well, let’s just say it cooked those steaks a lot faster than I thought it would and because I wasn’t standing out there watching … you can see where this is going.
The timer goes off and I dash (again) through the sheet of water only to find our once thick, juicy, beautiful, perfectly marinated ribeyes burnt to a crisp.
Surprise!
I’m not talking “well done” — I mean burnt.
To his credit, my dad never complained and ate his steak while I tried to scrape off the black crust like you do with a piece of burned toast.
My husband spent the rest of the night laughing at me until I stabbed him in the shoulder with a fork.
So, no. Not all surprises are good ones. But honestly, how many dinners do you remember where everything went perfectly?
You don’t, those don’t stick out in your mind.
It’s the nights where everything goes wrong that you remember: The night’s where bad weather, waterfalls, empty propane tanks and burnt steaks all come together and because there’s nothing else you can do about it — you just laugh.
Those are the best surprises of all.