A failed gift prank 18 years in the making.

Eighteen and a half years ago, to celebrate our wedding, scores of wonderful guests gave us scores of wonderful gifts. Among those wonderful gifts was a teapot. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the teapot, it was a serviceable, not totally unattractive, typical, stainless-steel, late-nineties-era, big-box-store teapot.

We were informed later, however, that this teapot was not to be kept. Before it was given to us, it had been gifted at many other weddings and had become a sort of gag gift, an inside joke, a hot potato amongst some of our friends.

We noted this, tucked it into storage waiting for the next appropriate wedding, and promptly forgot about it. For eighteen years.

During this pandemic, however, we have been organizing our storage room and the teapot happened to resurface. On that same day, Facebook informed me it was the birthday of one Stacey, a member of one of the couples who had owned the teapot right before us. Did I mention that Stacey and her husband Chris live half a mile from our house?

It is obvious: it is time to reactivate the teapot. This time as a birthday present.

I get some white paper and a red bow and wrap the teapot. I get a wig and some sunglasses for an anonymous delivery (in case they have a doorbell cam). Then I write a note on the paper from the perspective of the teapot:

"I have been searching for you all these years. So long estranged. But now we are together again. Happy Birthday, Stacey! -me

I hop in our van and head to their house. I’m preeeeetty sure I know which one is their house... You see, we had just recently reconnected with these old friends at our 20 year summer camp reunion and discovered that we lived so close together. Chris had described to me where they lived but I hadn’t gotten an exact address. So I have some doubts, but I’m feeling pretty good — the house is maybe a little too dark for a birthday party but it’s a pandemic and the kids might be in bed by now, and the style of house matches what I’ve seen on their social media posts, and what little I can see inside could probably live up to Chris’s high aesthetic standards. This is probably their house...

I quietly open the front gate and slink up to the front door. I set the box on the bench and firmly press the doorbell. But as I turn to run, I see, no doubt about it, in the front window: a cat. I have seen plenty of Instagram posts of their dog but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cat.

I sprint around the corner, jump in the van, still in wig and shades, and drive past the front door to see if I can see anyone opening the door. I do. A woman’s silhouette is leaning out the partially opened door, scanning the yard. But the glimpse is too quick to be sure if it is Stacey or not.

When I get home, I message Chris’s sister, Aimee: “Do Chris and Stacey have a cat?”

The definitive reply: “They do not have a cat, Chris is crazy allergic.”

Shoot!

I resolve to return the next day to see if I can retrieve the present and redeliver it to the correct house, which, Aimee has informed me, is three houses away, on the other side of the street. This time I bring Kaleia to do the redelivery.

My daughter, in a wig, ready to (hopefully) redeliver the teapot.

I knock on the door. No answer. I ring the doorbell. No answer. Oh, geez. The options here are:

1. I’ve come at a time when no one is actually home — but the world is in quarantine and it’s after typical work hours so this is unlikely;
2. The people inside are busy, maybe on the toilet — possible; or,
3. This person, having received a really weird package the night before is afraid to come to the door — I’ll let you decide on the likelihood.

(Feel free to scroll back up and look at that package... First imagine that your name is Stacey and it’s your birthday. A little weird, maybe, but you’d probably open it, curious to know what an anonymous friend has brought. Now imagine that it’s NOT your birthday and no one in your house is named Stacey and that package shows up with a ring-and-run under cover of darkness...)

I go back to the van, and write a note to leave, apologizing for the mishap and giving them my phone number to arrange for me to come pick it up soon.

All will be well, I think. The present will be a day or two late for Stacey, but all will be well.

A couple hours later, I’m eating dinner with my family and my phone vibrates:

A text from the unintended recipient: "Hi Brian, I'm the person at the house where you dropped off the present last night. Your present did scare me, it was so random and anonymous, and I was afraid to even touch it. I called the Beaverton police and they came and took it away, and they told me they threw it out. Sorry to not have better news. 😬 You could try calling them to see if it is really gone?

I did NOT expect this teapot story, ~20 years in the making, to end with law enforcement getting involved!

To all those involved in the teapot hot potato of the early 2000s (paging: Darian... were there other couples?) I’m sorry we broke the chain. Kind of. Sorry not sorry. This seems like a fitting end.

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Postscript – that night, on the verge of sleep, I burst out laughing again, this time imagining the anticlimax of the police opening the present only to see that it is just a run-of-the-mill teapot with nothing nefarious about it.

8 Year Old Celebrates 2nd Birthday and Brings Thief to (Restorative) Justice

Magnolia's actual birthday only comes around every 4 years so we try to ensure her party is extra special. Well, I'm not sure we'll ever top the celebration described below. And, for me personally, as the primary designer of this story-driven, spy-themed scavenger hunt, this honestly may be the most gratifying creative endeavor I've ever been a part of. From the team of family that came together to act, help brainstorm, and handle logistics, to the 7- and 8-year-olds whose wholehearted participation made the whole thing magical, everything about the production and reception felt perfect.

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When Magnolia's 6 friends (+ her sister) arrive at our house they enter using the iPad that is set up to take their fingerprints. Then they choose spy disguises and receive their official ID badges.

2nd-grade spies in disguise

In the kitchen, prominently displayed, is the ice cream buffet, with all kinds of candy sumptuously laid out. Once everyone is here, Shannon instructs them to head upstairs, but the stairs are rigged with yarn—I mean lasers—blocking their path and they have to Mission Impossible through without touching any. When they all successfully complete that first training exercise, they watch an orientation video, which is interrupted with an urgent communication.

Marc Firsht, a known criminal, is on the loose. No specific action is required at this time but everyone is instructed to be on the lookout.

At that moment, a clatter downstairs in the kitchen—banging, clanking, doors slamming—and then a loud cackle and heavy footsteps as the intruder flees. When the new spies, on high alert, run downstairs, the magnificent ice cream and candy display is gone! And so are all the gifts! Stolen!

Shannon gets a text on her phone. It's from headquarters: "It is no longer safe to communicate with you at your current location. Security has been compromised. Drive immediately to Magnolia Park to receive further instructions."

When they get in the car, they are handed a printout of information about the villain:

Some villain origin stories are more epic than others. 

At the first stop, Magnolia Park, they are given clues that have them scurrying across the park to tupperwares hidden in shrubs with clues to ponder, codes to decipher, and an invisible-ink map that promises to lead them to their next destination. All are excitedly contributing, brows furrowed, suggestions and guesses voiced confidently among friends.

They are super smart and figure it all out, with the help of their tool kits which include black light flashlight-pens!

Shannon loads them all into the vans and tells them they are totally responsible for guiding her, using their piecemeal map, to get to the next destination. Shannon and I are in communication this whole time as I am setting up the clues, scrambling, not ready at all. Did I mention that I was up all night creating this thing and it's still not quite done?

The lead van, meanwhile is the best kind of purposeful chaos. The girls are trying to hold the pieces of their puzzle-map together to figure out the best route. At one point, Shannon circles a roundabout umpteen times before the girls, frantic, tell her which road to get onto. A little later, to buy me some time, Shannon pretends, twice, to be distracted by an airplane and misses a turn. Much shouting ensues—"Mama! Pay attention!!"—but they eventually get to the library.

Once inside, they, on the orders of a text-message directive from headquarters, retrieve a tube from a librarian. It contains a riddle that leads them to a cipher taped to the bottom of a table. By solving a math problem, they get the call number of a book, and nearby library patrons are amused by the excited gasps as they near the appropriate decimal on the spines of the books. The chosen book contains a slip of paper, a coded message, spaced oddly and written in backwards letters.


At this point, with all the library clues planted and found, I make a quick appearance (as myself) to the group, hoping they won't realize I've been, and will be, absent from most of the party. Then I slip away again as they pile into the girls bathroom to hold the code up to the mirror and use the cipher to decode it. Again, they are super smart. I didn't make these things easy. The code tells them their next destination: Costco.

Once there, headquarters instructs them to get some lunch and await further instructions. This whole time my parents have been driving their own car and meeting us at each location. This time they meet me early at Costco so I can get my mom into costume and set her loose.

It takes a little coaxing to get her to agree to the public silliness but she is a good sport. Meanwhile, ramping up the intensity after a brief reprieve, our pizza-eating heroes receive another text from headquarters. Other agents, it turns out, have been tailing Marc Firsht. He is in Costco, to buy *more* ice cream, which he is keeping in a locked case, but our agency has stolen the key to one of the locks and have hidden it for us amongst the shelves.

Another text: a senior agent (Grandma) in disguise in Costco is trying to give them another message (the combination for the other lock on the ice cream case). Our heroes must find her so she can inconspicuously drop the note on the floor for them, but they must avoid being seen by Marc Firsht.

Seven little girls in disguise SWAT teaming it through Costco on a Saturday receive their final directive from a grandma in Groucho glasses.

They pile back into the vans and head to their final destination, their school, where Firsht is headed to eat his ill-gotten ice cream. They've guessed he'll be at the playground, but when they arrive and tiptoe through the forest he's nowhere to be seen. His case, however, is sitting right there, unattended, atop the playground. And all the presents! They sprint—the ones who are brave enough—to retrieve it, then hide in a little wooden fort a ways away.

Firsht comes back moments later and is increasingly frantic and devastated to discover his ice cream is gone.

Some of the girls work to figure out the combination lock, while others keep their wide, wary eyes on Firsht. As he wanders around, woebegone, the girls are unsure what to do. Feels weird to have an ice cream party while the guy you just stole your ice cream back from is wailing nearby!

As the actor playing Firsht, I'm unsure too. Should I just exit stage left so they can enjoy their ice cream in peace? That doesn't feel right, though. Thankfully, some of the grown-ups suggest the girls come tackle me and invite me to their ice cream party.

Maybe such extravagant magnanimity for a criminal is naïve and ill-advised, but their readiness to forgive and extend radical hospitality was truly inspiring. For many of them, among the mix of intense emotions today has been legitimate fear—while there are suspicions that this villain is really Magnolia's dad in costume, no one, even my own kids(!), is totally sure—yet despite their fear they are so ready to forgive!

They jump out of the fort and start yelling after Marc. He takes off across the soccer field, afraid he's in trouble. They pursue, yelling things like "We wanna share!! We wanna share!!"

When they catch up, they group-hug him and convince him to come back to the fort.

The ice cream is a little melty, but there's plenty for everyone, even the parents who are now arriving to retrieve their children, and it tastes that much better with a little reconciliation on top.

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If you have 9 minutes, I highly recommend watching the video below to see a little more of the girl's enthusiasm, and trepidation, and courage, and cleverness, and astonishment. Full screen is best.