It is my Mom’s birthday and I was racking my brain what I could send her for her birthday. Something special. Something quirky. Something to make her smile. This year my Grandma is living with Mom and she has been sick so I wanted to do something for Mom that Grandma could enjoy too.

So I thought of a million different things, and settled on one.

I was going to make them dinner.

Only I’m in Nova Scotia and they are in Listowel, Ontario.

So I started my research last week. Who could I rope into bringing them food? Or maybe I could get a cake delivered? What about an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen? Who would deliver it? Bribe the kids who work there to swing it by Mom’s after their shift?

Nah….

I decided to go way simpler.

I remember once Mom and Grandma Stock came to visit me in the Sault and I went to their hotel room over looking the St. Marys River to play cards with way too much pizza and chicken wings and we had a riot.

So I decided I was going to surprise them with pizza and wings.

A couple days I started to narrow down the plan, and I found the menu to one of the local pizza places in Listowel that I knew wouldn’t lead me astray. I browsed all the specials and the menu and started the plot. How was I going to find out if Mom would be home and then how was I going to convince her not to cook?

So I started poking Mom with text messages, trying to find out what she was doing for her birthday. She had no plans, and no visitors.

So I told her I would be making her dinner.

That was a day or so ago.

Today all day Grandma has been telling Mom she is so silly and would she just take a pizza or something out of the freezer for dinner?

Mom said No. Lisa and Jeff are making dinner.

Oh you are so foolish, Grandma Stock said. They are in Nova Scotia. They can’t make you dinner.

All day long I was anxious. When would I call in the order? Will they answer a call from a different area code? Would they take payment over the phone? Could I put a tip on for the driver on the phone?

When it was close to the time, I put the menu on my computer screen, and the number from the pizza place’s website, and the address for Mom’s house.

Then I placed the call.

I was so nervous. What if I didn’t pull this off? Then it would be Mom’s birthday and she wouldn’t get anything from me!

Ring. Ring. Then it went to an auto answer and said it would redirect my call to their closest restaurant to me.

No!!! That won’t work! Click.

I remembered seeing another number for them on one of their website, so I dug around and found a new number.

A young foreign fellow answered the call. He was kind, but slow, and stumbled around. He took my order, and then asked for Mom’s address. I gave the house and street number, but then he wanted to know if it was North, South, East or West on that street. He said he wasn’t from there. I said I wasn’t either, and I calling from Nova Scotia, but I thought the street was short so the driver should be able to find it.

I slowly gave him my credit card number, and he slowly read it back out as I delivered it, with the expiration date, for everyone in the restaurant to jot down (garlic fingers on us I guess. haha)

7 minutes and 33 seconds after he answered the call, the order was complete and the pizza was on the way into the oven!

25 minutes later, like clock work, a jubilant Mom was on the phone. She said Grandma was in tears. Stuck between laughter and crying, Grandma couldn’t believe I just made them dinner, and she was off to fetch dinner plates. Mom sounded so tickled. Funny thing is – they were playing cards when their dinner arrived, just like that night in the Sault.

I got them 2 medium pizzas, BBQ wings, Caesar salad, 4 pops, and some Brownies.

Mom said they are full and have enough food for a couple more days (so if you are in the area, swing by ).