The first time I realized that surprise birthday parties were real was when I had one thrown for me. It was only last year, in fact, on my twenty-fourth birthday. I went out with a friend to help him pick out a nice scarf, and when we came back there was a party waiting for me. It was surreal -- there were balloons and one of those "happy birthday" banners made out of coloured letters joined together, and there was a cake. We drank beer, I opened presents (including a battle droid blaster with light up action and sound -- it scares the bejeezus out of the cat, so I use it an awful lot), and felt oddly warm and loved, and I realized the true meaning of surprise birthday parties. They do, somehow, make you feel oddly warm and loved just as you're starting to think that the whole world has forgotten your birthday.
Of course, usually the whole world does forget my birthday. Even the person I was in love with forgot my birthday last year. It's on Christmas Eve, and I've gotten very used to the fact that most of the world has other things on its mind. Family obligations and unbreakable plans take people away; some people go home for the holidays, and others run away from it. In fact, I'd never even had a birthday party before, let alone a surprise one. The best I've managed was a really swell un-birthday party that Caira declared would fall in January to get around the whole Christmastime problem. Anyway, last year I was feeling really sorry for myself, because even more people had seemed to forget about my birthday than usual. I had only finished exams a day or two before, so I was still feeling the stress of having to ace five courses; I was also broke, and lonely, and my thoughts were really far away and hopeless. I was in a great big sulk, basically, and it convinced my family and some friends that something had to be done. But I'm not sure that walking around for days with cranky stormclouds over your head while you moon and pine over lost loves and stink up your life with a choking sense of morbid self-pity is quite the way to go. It worked for me, but it shouldn't have. I wanted people to ignore me, because I felt ignored, hurt and angry anyway, and all I wanted for my birthday was to be pushed out into the snow and left to die, bitter and alone. So of course they worked infuriatingly hard to do the exact opposite. You might find yourself similarly disappointed, therefore.

There are really two different schools of thought on how to manipulate people without them being aware of it. The first was made famous by such meddlesome busybodies as Dear Abby, known around the world as she is for instructing grandmothers, housewives and frustrated middle management figures on the arts of guilt and etiquette. I call this the "Failure Method." Dear Abby would tell you that if you want people to throw a surprise birthday party for you, you're going to have to let them know it. The key would be subtle hints and careful planning. This is something you need time to prepare. Whether or not your friends are in the habit of throwing parties for people anyway, they need to know you want one, but without hearing about it so close to your own birthday that they think you're pushing them into it. For at least several months before your birthday, and probably longer, you would have to drop little hints in conversation about surprise parties you've thrown in the past for friends, and how much you've always wanted one for yourself. If you thought they weren't getting the hint and really wanted to put your cards on the table, you could show up drunk at a friend's house one night, crying and forlorn, eventually letting it slip that among the many things missing from your life is a surprise birthday party.
I couldn't recommend "the failure method," because this technique mostly requires tact, patience, skill and guile of a sort that most people will never manage without also acquiring a successful political career or criminal psychopathy along the way. The best that most of us can hope for is to hone such powers to the point where we can seduce strangers in bars, because dry, frequent, anonymous sex isn't such a bad consolation prize. But convincing your friends to throw you a surprise birthday party is a lot harder -- especially when you can't even rely upon the assistance of huge quantities of judgment-numbing alcohol to get you a halfway headstart down their metaphorical pants.

The real problem with surprise parties is that, in a perfect world, they're supposed to be a surprise. You never know how, you never know when, you never know who is going to throw it for you. Since trying to have one thrown for you is kind of breaking the rules anyway, the masters and I are in agreement that to be successful you have to break even more of them. Niccolo Machiavelli didn't live long enough to write what would have been his even more famous book, The Pragmatic Socialite, but if he had I would have stumbled across a dusty old edition while I was prowling through a used book store buying (ironically) new textbooks. In this book, Machiavelli would have this to say about surprise birthday parties:
As every villain in every action movie has learned, the surest way to guarantee that your will is done is not to let your henchmen do it, but instead to just go ahead and do it yourself. Henchmen, cronies, friends, what have you, are only human, and they're bound to get things wrong. They can't read your mind, and unlike you they're not quite as crafty as James Bond, so somehow when your back is turned the hero always manages to get away and the world is always saved. It's the same thing for waiting for your friends to throw you a surprise birthday party: maybe they will, and maybe they won't. Maybe it will be this year, and maybe it will be when you're fifty-eight. Maybe it will never happen at all. Since ultimately you'll be at the heart of any party that is thrown for you, no matter how subtley you try to arrange it, you might as well go all the way and have it done right. Some people are happy to leave it to chance, but obviously you're not, so I think you're ready to learn what must be done.

When busy people need to get parties arranged, they don't shoulder the terrible burden all by themselves, oh no. What they do is take an accomplice. Look at nature for an example: when two people decide to get married, they have a lot of complicated details to arrange, and there's no human way for them to manage it all, particularly if they still want to be in love at the end of all that stress. That's why they have things like parents, but especially that's why they name a best man and a maid of honour. Each helps with the arrangements for the bachelor party and the bridal shower respectively, and they help MC the reception. They're the muscle and the brains behind a lot of happiness for the bride and groom. That's what you need here. You need someone to take the responsibility away from you and get this party to happen.
Your accomplice should be a close, trusted friend who knows how to keep his or her mouth shut. Ideally, your accomplice should be intimately close to you -- a lover. Someone who can be sworn to secrecy and be assured that they'll never know the sweet touch of your naked body again if they mess this up. You have to take someone into your confidence and tell them, honestly, that you really want to have a surprise birthday party thrown for you. They need to know how very much that would mean to you. If they agree, you can leave all of the arrangements from there on in to them -- and that's why a lover is so handy; you can have the party at your house (which is really the best way to have a surprise party), because they'll already have the keys. Acting with your best interests at heart, your accomplice will conspire with all of your friends to throw you a "surprise party" -- and since they don't know you're behind it all, it will seem all the more fun and spontaneous to everyone than if you'd been dropping hints all this time. You may want to secretly help behind the scenes, especially if liquor must be purchased for the party, but that's a negotiation you'll have to manage with your accomplice. And sure, you've started the ball rolling, but now you're guaranteed a surprise party with as much spontaneity as can be managed, given the circumstances. I bet it would still be a heap of fun -- after all, a party is a party.

Of course, I'll depart from Machiavelli just a bit so that I can tell you that if the party really does happen, and it really does go well, you owe your accomplice the best oral sex of his or her life... or the equivalent in terms of whatever else would make him or her as happy as they've made you. Fair is fair, and to get a little you have to give a little. But maybe that's what Machiavelli would have said, too. The world needs more people willing to do things for each other, especially oral sex.