Surprise! or not

This year for my birthday, because there are so many wonderful restaurants in our area and because I am incapable of making any kind of important decision -- and where to go for one's birthday dinner rates as one of THE most important decisions -- I have left it up to the Hero to decide where we go to celebrate, with the stipulation that no home improvement stores be involved in the evening, as happened a few years ago.

The only thing wrong with this plan is that I am not the only one in our household for whom making decisions is statistically impossible.

"Well, where do you WANT to go?" the Hero said.

"I want YOU to pick."

"Me?"

"Like you did a few years ago, but someplace new. And no Lowe's this time," I said. "OR Home Depot."

A day or so later he brought up the subject again.

"When you say someplace new, do you mean new-new, like someplace we've never been? Or haven't-been-there-in-a-while-so-it's-kind-of-like-new?"

"Either one," I said.

He sighed.

"I want it to be a surprise," I said. "So just pick."

But this is agonizing to someone who cannot bear to not share something he knows.

Finally, later he said, "So I think I have it all figured out. We'll go to --"

"La la la!" I said, plugging my ears. "I said I don't want to know."

"For real?" This perplexed him. HE would want to know. Why would I not want to know?

He is probably still recalling the occasion of my last big birthday, when I said I did not want a big party, nor did I want to be surprised. He relayed this to some of his coworkers, all of whom were male and married.

"Dude," they said with concern, "when she says no, she means yes. She really wants a party."

"No, I think she really doesn't," he said.

"You are gonna be in big trouble, Dude. You GOTTA plan something."

Clearly torn between what he THOUGHT he knew about me, and what other men were telling him he clearly DIDN'T know about me, he confessed his dilemma to me.

"Are you secretly wanting a party? Am I going to be in trouble if I don't plan one?"

"I'm telling the truth," I assured him. "I wouldn't play games." 

But the subject is still clearly on his mind. "So," he said recently, "when you say you DON'T want to go to Lowe's on your birthday,  do you secretly mean you do...?"