It was around 1pm of September 7 and I was busy answering emails and troubleshooting when suddenly, a voice boomed behind me. “Heidee, happy birthday!”
His voice was so loud, so everyone in our floor (with the newly lowered cubicle partitions) turned to look.
It was the office heartthrob Jon holding out a long-stemmed red rose. O. M. G.
I stood up on shaky legs, took the rose, and returned his megawatt smile. Rome asked to take our picture, and for our pose, Jon held the rose and wrapped his arm around my shoulder.
This was what I got when my two sets of friends in the office joined forces to come up with a birthday surprise for me.
They know that I’m crazy about flowers…and they also know that I have a tendency to go crazy about boys. Add the two together and they got the perfect plan = 25 roses (one for each year I’ve spent on earth) to be given by 25 boys.
And so for the rest of the afternoon, boys from all over the office showed up at my workstation one by one to present me with long-stemmed roses. Some of them are present and former crushes, some of them are friends, and some of them, I barely knew.
The 21st guy was another popular crush ng bayan, our boss Joel. He had 5 roses in his arms and he said, “Happy birthday, Heidz! I’m the last guy. Am I supposed to kneel?” And he actually did! Everyone went nuts.
As if that wasn’t enough, my friends showed up at my area with a chocolate cake which we ate in the pantry.
Then my teammate Mich dropped by and said they also had a cake for me. Wow. Theirs was mango-flavored, and they also had palabok. So I invited everyone in our department to drop by our cubicle to eat.
At night I brought my two sets of friends to Punchline, a comedy bar in Tomas Morato. We were seated way up front and so the stand up comedians picked on some of our lot. One gay performer kissed Caloy and also pulled Thom onstage and brushed his hand against his crotch. Poor Thom.
After that we dropped by the nearest Starbucks and chatted while nursing coffees on the couches. Then under Jerome’s direction, we posed for lots of pictures. The best way to end the night, in my book.
Gelle and I had planned on spending the night with Kes, who had just arrived from Tuguegarao that afternoon. But when we got to Pasong Tamo, it was flooded. I felt bad because I was the one who had chosen Keso’s inn for her and I thought she’d hate the flood… but she was actually excited about it, saying she had never experienced a flood before. That girl never ceases to amaze me.
So we found a pedicab to bring us through the flood, but the sidecar could only hold two. The driver then suggested that one ride on the driver’s seat while he push us from behind. So I volunteered to do so and even volunteered to pedal because it seemed like fun. It painted an interesting picture, yes, a girl in a sexy outfit pedalling a pedicab through a flooded street at 5 in the morning.
In Keso’s room we pushed the two beds together and chatted till the early hours of the morning before nodding off to sleep for a couple of hours. Then we woke up, chatted some more, and then took a lot of pictures before heading off to Red Ribbon for brunch.
I was definitely right in assuming that my 25th birthday would be more special than usual. ^^
