The thing that worried Joey the most about his eighteenth birthday was the fact that by law, he would have to register for the selective service within thirty days of turning eighteen. I remember him showing me the postcard he got in the mail saying something along the lines of:
“You are a male citizen of the United States and you are now eighteen years old. It is required by law that you register for the selective service within 30 days of your 18th birthday. Should servicemen be deemed necessary by our President, you could be drafted. Happy Birthday.” (Something along those lines, maybe not exactly those words.)
Don’t get me wrong, Joey is all kinds of patriotic. But the thought of being drafted probably doesn’t sound exciting to very many eighteen year old guys. It didn’t to Joey. Disregard the fact that we were enjoying a time of peace and no wars seemed to be in the foreseeable future. It still worried him.
The thing that worried me the most about Joey’s eighteenth birthday, on the other hand, was how to come up with a unique and creative birthday idea that would even remotely compare to all the creative things we had already done for each other. So far, we had done the driving kit thing, the giant card, the morning serenade, a surprise party and a slide show video of photos. I wanted to come up with something good.
So I sat on my back porch wondering what to do for Joey. Our back porch was perfect for thinking. My parents always took great care of our house and yard. My mom thoroughly enjoyed planting and tending to her flowers and they always looked beautiful.
Then I saw it. The shed in our backyard. It was perfect! Our shed was more like a mini-barn. It had windows and a loft where my parents mostly stored Christmas decor and things of that nature. As a kid, the shed served as my playhouse. Sometimes April, Kyle and I would turn it into a fun house or haunted house and charge the neighborhood kids ten cents to go through it. I distinctly remember peeling the skin off of a couple of grapes so that we could fool the neighbor kids into believing they were feeling two eyeballs in our "spook house" shed. Over the years, that shed had served multiple purposes. Now it would serve another.
I had my idea. I would turn our shed into a quaint little Italian restaurant for one evening. I could clean it up, bring in chairs and a table along with candles and fancy dishes. Then I could make a superb dinner for two. Perfect!
The day of our date, I spent hours on hours getting everything ready. Besides transforming the shed into an Italian restaurant, I had to prepare a gourmet dinner for two. I wasn’t the best cook in the world. In fact, I mostly specialized in cooking things like macaroni and cheese...from a box. But I had learned to cook a few things and I definitely knew how to follow a recipe.
The menu I selected for the evening was manicotti, salad, bread, green beans and twice-baked potatoes. I’m not sure why my mom didn’t tell me that twice-baked potatoes with manicotti was not the best combination. Actually, come to think of it, she probably did tell me but I was a tad bit stubborn once I set my mind on something. I’d recently learned how to make twice-baked potatoes and I thought I was pretty awesome at it so I am sure I chose to make them to show off my newly discovered culinary giftedness in the potato category.
I was sure my menu would satisfy and impress Joey who was scheduled to arrive for his birthday surprise promptly at six o’clock.
At 5:55, I made the final preparations in the shed. I set out all the food and made sure it was all hot and ready. I lit the candles. I turned on some music. Then I ran inside and waited at the front window to watch for Joey.
6:05... 6:10... 6:15... He must be running late. That’s okay. At 6:20, I ran out to the shed to check on everything. The food had started to cool so I ran some of it back inside to re-heat.
6:25... 6:30... Where could he be? 6:35... 6:40... This was just weird. Where could he be? This was before cell phones, but the thought occurred to me that I could call his house at least. Should I call his house?
6:45... 6:50... Okay, I’m calling. This is just not like him.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
“Hello?”
