RIFLE RANGE BOY

The Game... you just lost it! Call me a loner, a sociophobic, Grinch or Scrooge. I do not particularly fancy having a big bash for something considered private. So what if you turn 50. Anyone with a bit of luck and divine non-intervention or intervention can achieve that. Even stray dogs can celebrate theirs (birthday, i. e.) if they survive the pound catchers or being a road kill. If they still want to felicitate themselves for this, it is still something personal - not appropriate for them to brag about it to their dogs and bitches but to reflect on their personal achievements and shortcomings to shortcomings to be able to survive another anniversary.  Celebrating any personal achievement must be (er...) personal, enjoying it with the people who make it happened and the ones who were in the receiving end in the endeavor in your journey. Not that the bread man and newspaper man did not assist in your goals, this is personal. They got their dues.  Perhaps superst...

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 th...

A couple of weeks ago, I was an accomplice in someone's crime. A crime of a trivial nature meaning to do no one no harm but only a pleasant surprise. The intended victims are relatively young; hence their heart should be able to take the shock of the deceit! The modus operandi was planned with the daughter of my friend (RM) calling to get contact numbers of my friend way back 6 months prior to the event. What event? My friend and wife's 50th birthday and 20th wedding anniversary. That was it. RM never called back. She single handedly right under her parents' noses managed to arrange the venue, the caterers, contact all the relatives and friends secretly, sneak out some of the family photos for the slide presentation, organize the invitation cards, get the caterers, arrange the itinerary of the day and at the same time juggling with her work in college. She managed to cough off some of pocket money and squeeze out contributions from conniving relatives. On D-day, her unc...