When I was briefly in private practice back in the Seventies, my law partner’s wife came to me. “It’s Frank’s birthday next week and I want to throw him a surprise party. Can you come up with a way to keep him from getting home that night until 7 PM?”
Well, I knew it was going to be difficult. Frank was a creature of habit and followed the same regimen day after day. He would normally leave the office at 4 in the afternoon and head straight home. I had to come up with a way to retard his progress by a whopping 3 hours! So I returned from lunch on the celebratory day all disheveled and seemingly upset.
“What’s the matter with you?” Frank asked, concerned.
“My wife came home unexpectedly at noon and caught me in the sack with Julie, the court reporter.” I heaped it on, making up the details on the fly, putting the wrong end of my cigarette in my mouth (I quit smoking in ’77). “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t want to lose my marriage. You have to help me come up with something, Frank,” I pleaded.
Could we just get together after work for an hour or so to talk and come up with something? I can’t even think about it this afternoon, I claimed, since I have depositions scheduled starting in 20 minutes. I grabbed some files and left the office. “I should be back before 4:30,” I said on the way out.
Since Frank’s habit was to start drinking when he got home, the natural place to go to talk about my “problem” was a local watering hole. We got there just after 5 o’clock. I had to kill almost two hours with my story. Frank’s house was only a ten minute drive from the bar.
The fact that my ruse involved a sexual element naturally interested and entertained him. He had enough of the voyeur in him to lose track of the time as I concocted details of my supposed dalliance. Finally, it was 6:45 and I’d held him up long enough. We left the bar and got into our respective cars. “Wish me luck, see you tomorrow,” I said.
Frank’s wife had leased a bus and driver to bring all the invited guests in for the surprise bash. Thus, when Frank arrived home, the place looked normal. There weren’t any cars parked out front to clue him in. It worked great. Frank’s surprise birthday party was a success. My wife and I were the last guests to arrive…and we’re still married!