The preparations for Saturday night started nearly two weeks ago with Za and Xena’s announcement that there would be a surprise party bus set up for T’s birthday. As the date approached, getting ready got more and more complicated as T began wanting to plan something while everyone around her is trying to figure out how not to completely avoid her plan without giving away the surprise. T, naturally, is one of those people who controls quite a bit of group communication and coordination, so the idea of keeping a surprise with all of her friends involved under wraps doesn’t seem like the most doable proposition.
On Friday, T sends out an email inviting everyone to a BBQ on Saturday starting at 1. Obviously, because we can’t tell T that we’re going to be raging late into the night, we need to show up and be counted for the BBQ. I get there at around 2 to find the Choosy, Blair, Windy and a few others hanging around. Funny thing is that all of a sudden, given the motive and opportunity to lie, people start lying left and right to throw T off, just because they can. Choosy spins a ridiculous yarn about her phone being out of batteries, only to reveal later that that was simply a ploy to let her leave the house. At one moment during the festivities, it’s announced that Lina from the Carol has slipped and mentioned a party bus in front of T, which starts everyone scurrying around wondering if she now knows of the surprise or not. We insist on playing it off as though she doesn’t, but everyone’s pretty sure she does.
Hessica shows up around 830 and Za, myself, McButter, Tri and a few others are playing the “let’s go out to a bar and have a drink or two” decoy game. All the while Za is on the phone with the people on the bus trying to coordinate where they need to go to cross paths with us. T starts getting antsy to get to the Lex, so we start walking. About three blocks from her place, the bus starts coming up. Everyone in our group is watching it, T is walking down the sidewalk completely oblivious, continuing her conversation. As the bus approaches, people start hanging out the window and screaming at T.
She turns to the bus and gives it one of her patented, “What the hell is wrong with those people?” looks that she has. As she’s glaring at them, she slowly starts to recognize one, then two, then more people, until all of a sudden it dawns on her that everyone in the bus is her friend. We start walking towards the bus and I ask her if she’s ready to get on, and it’s obvious at this point that the surprise has been a success because she’s tearing up a bit (which I have definitely never seen). She relates to me later that the slow recognition of the fact that the bus was for her started with, “Who are those dumbasses? Wait, I know some of those people…what are they doing? That looks like fun. Wait a second, are we going over to the bus? Oh shit, the bus is for me.”
The bus has about 30 of us on there, all good friends of T’s from her various walks of life. Kels, Cat, Jacks and Cath, Bini, Danny and others are all there. This bus is a school bus that has been gutted and converted into a party bus. As you walk on, there are no rows of seats, but rather two long benches that run down either side of the bus. In the back, there’s a raised dance floor and there are speakers throughout the bus that you can connect an iPod to.
We make our first stop at the Lex where they’re having an anniversary party of some sort and it’s more crowded than I’ve ever seen it, even though they’ve moved the pool table out of there. This is billed as a quick stop with everyone exiting the bus, heading into the Lex, taking a quick shot of Jager or what have you, then Choosy gets on the mic and tells everyone else to get back on the bus, which pulls up about five minutes later.
For the next several hours, the majority of the trip involves hideously ridiculous amounts of booze being drunk by people with one hand on the ceiling of the bus trying to hold themselves up while drinking and dancing as the bus drives around San Francisco. At one point we ask the driver to take us up to Twin Peaks. As we arrive, Kramer, who’s apparently been chasing the bus all over the city, finds us and joins. As we climb higher and higher, we get to a spot that the driver claims is the top. This sparks an argument between him and Za over what actually constitutes the top, and after some screaming and a cell phone call to his boss, he takes us up further…but everyone is parked up there and there’s not a whole lot of room, so after a few smokes we’re back on and rolling.
The bus then takes us to an Island (I’m still not sure if it was Treasure or the one on the other side of the Golden Gate) where we get out to get a great view of the Bridge and the city. At this point, Drunk is about the only thing anyone is, and as we load the bus again, people start getting over the fact that dancing while the bus is moving is difficult, and start dancing, even as that entails falling on their ass when the bus takes a corner. At one point, the driver hits the brakes fast and the entire dance floor (meaning everyone dancing) slides, falls and ends up in the middle of the bus. He circles the city a bit, circles again and drops us off back in front of the Lex at 1.
At this point, the party fragments. Some of the party heads into the Lex to drink where they left off at the beginning of the evening, and others of us decide there’s no reason to go into the Lex when we can drink on the street. KRigg starts an arm wrestling contest on the sidewalk across the street while Hessica and I smoke js, simultaneously chugging straight from a bottle of pear vodka (despite the fact that I've vowed never to drink pear vodka again). This continues for about an hour or so, which is completely shocking as I have no idea how I manage to stand on a sidewalk in the middle of the Mission, drinking straight from a bottle of vodka and smoking pot without any police interference.
After the arm wrestling, and more pear vodka than probably anyone should drink straight, it’s time for crepes and we load up the cab and take it over to eat. At this point it’s Hessica, myself, T, Za, and Tri. I load up with a banana/nutella/coconut before we get back in a cab and I eat a hot dog and jalapeno chips from 7-11 before passing out on the couch. It was a most excellent surprise party for a most excellent person, and as we're now about to April, it's just about time to kick those BBQs into full gear!
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