The rat appeared but somebody did not smell it!

The dust still has not settled on the surprise party that I organized for my deary. Since she is turning half a century old, though she looks easily looks a decade younger, she likes to be in the limelight, is a party animal (buts rises early the next morning for temple type) and she likes pleasant surprises, I thought, "Why not have a surprise party for her?"
Now how do you organize a party for a person unashamedly says, "If you plan to have a surprise party for me, wait till for my sister from Canada to return home for a holiday at end of June, okay?"  Like it is going to be such a surprise that she would go, "Oh.......you shouldn't have!!!!! Oh" with a fake Oh.......
This fake surprise is no surprise at all!
First, to create a decoy, I just agreed that that should be the ideal time for the surprise. I would the one surprised when everybody screams surprise to the birthday girl and she is thrilled! When pressed to be more aggressive in getting things organised for a function 3 months away, I just reassured the birthday girl, it is all under control. Thank you very much; I will get things going, no worries.
Behind the scene, under the cloak of secrecy, I had already planned a bash on the weekend following the big day. The guests list basically compromised 3 categories - family members and relatives, close family friends and to give the nostalgia feel, her old friends from her school days!

The venue was decided, at a private room at a new restaurant. The next difficult thing was to get her old friends contact number and getting everybody mum about it. Still, I had to inform and pre-warn everyone about it - if not; nobody would turn up at the party! And the surprise would fall flat!
I decided to leave my youngest boy of out equation as it would be such a big stress for him to handle. My other children managed to sneak out the phone numbers. Thanks to modern media, I was able to do lot of hanky panky without breaking cover.
Throughout the whole time, nobody showed any emotion and life went on as business as usual.
Her real birthday came and after the usual cursory and cutting the cake, that was it.
A day before the function, out of town relatives arrived and were housed in my cousin's place. By that time, my youngest son had to be informed. He almost spilt the beans when we visited the out-of-towners. Whilst discussing our unrelated subject, he mentioned to his mother that we had visited Kepong (the place they were placed) but luckily she did not pick the hint! Phew! The rat almost came out but luckily she did not smell it - a sanitized vermin indeed!
On the D-Day, my daughter managed to brainwash my wife for a girls' night out. She liked the idea. So off they went. By that time, everybody was nicely stationed in their posts, including my other son who was supposedly to be at home studying very hard for his examinations. My daughters took a long detour and finally brought her to the rendezvous.
When the doors swung open at the Olive Tree Restaurant, everybody screamed at the top of their lungs, "Surprise!!!" and off went the music to the song of the most frequently sang song of the world, Happy Birthday!

After an initial a full 3 minutes of petrifaction and tongue-tiedness, my wife came down to Earth. After the series of welling of tears, "Oh my gawd!"s and huggings, the party began like it was 1999 to one that most people in our circle have not enjoyed for a mighty long time. I knew it was worth it when, my wife whispered in my ears, "My best birthday, thanks!"

P/S: Just like at the end of some movies where they highlight the blunders and boo-boos during production, it is worth mentioning my moments of dumbness. After much difficulty securing all the ever important telephone numbers of people very dear to my wife, I had it all set up on my i-Phone. On the pretext of charging the phone while working on the computer, instead of charging the phone the usual way via a wall socket and 3-pin plug, smarty pants (me) decided to charge it to the computer via a USB port. And poof went all the contacts as the phone decided to synchronise the setting without my knowledge or ignorance! #2 On the actual day, there was much confusion on whether the entourage had actually arrived. The plan was for my wife to cut her cake as she arrived. After many false alarms, when one signal which appeared as genuine arrived, all 50 candles were lit. Even after all candles melted and burnt off, the guest of honour never arrived!