{"id":1929,"date":"2020-04-02T00:15:28","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T04:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=1929"},"modified":"2022-12-01T09:23:11","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T14:23:11","slug":"a-to-z-b-is-for-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=1929","title":{"rendered":"A to Z Challenge 2020: B is for Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was Barry\u2019s birthday. He was turning 13. He was ready for all the new things he would be allowed to do. But first, there was the birthday party that he knew was coming. His parents tried to hide it from him, but he knew they had something planned. Thirteen is a big milestone. His friends were good at keeping secrets too, so no one let slip a word that there was going to a surprise party. But Barry knew. What else could it be?<\/span><\/p>\n

It was late in the day, the sun had set, and the street lights had just turned on as he headed home from his friend\u2019s house. As he reached his doorway he could see his house was brightly lit from the inside. He put his key in the lock to get into the house and all of a sudden his house blackened. Every light went off.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is it\u201d, he thought, \u201ctime to pretend I\u2019m surprised.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He opened the door and\u2026 nothing happened. There was not a sound; there was no movement; there was no one there at all. All he could see was a large illuminated box sitting in the middle of his living room. On examination, he noticed a card taped to the box. It read, \u201cHappy Birthday, Barry.\u00a0 Enjoy your present. All you need to do is open this box and build.\u201d It was signed, \u201cLove, Us\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Barry was very confused. Where was everyone? What was in the box? He hoped it wasn\u2019t some furniture from IKEA. He never was successful in putting those things together. And who did \u201cUs\u201d include, family, friends, strangers? There was only one way to find out. He opened the box.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Inside the box were 6 pieces of wood and a door. Four of the pieces slotted together to form the frame for the door. The other two pieces slotted into the bottom of the frame to make it stand up. There was no way to connect the door to the frame, but it looked like it fit perfectly. He lifted the door and put it into place, wondering how he was going to attach it… when there was a flash of light and the door attached itself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That was interesting, but he still couldn\u2019t figure out what was the big deal in assembling a door. That was until he opened the door.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He assumed that he was going to see the other side of the room. What he saw was a field of luminescent green grass. In the distance, he could see a forest. Not being the shy type, Barry stepped through the doorway to examine what was there. As soon as he stepped through, the door closed and disappeared. He was now in the middle of the field.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

to be continued in <\/i>F is for Follow<\/i><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was Barry\u2019s birthday. He was turning 13. He was ready for all the new things he would be allowed to do. But first, there was the birthday party that he knew was coming. His parents tried to hide it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,4,7],"tags":[70,220,67],"class_list":["post-1929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-to-z-blog-challenge-2020","category-original-stories","category-story-writing","tag-a-to-z-blog-challenge","tag-birthday-surprise","tag-harvey-heilbrun"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1929"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1956,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929\/revisions\/1956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}