On Wednesday April 15th, 2009…

It was late afternoon and as I quickly finished tidying the house before we headed off on my birthday getaway there was a knock on the door. It was the UPS man and he had a box for me. A heavy, brown cardboard box, about 2 feet long by 18 inches across and 10 inches deep. I assumed it was a gift from my partners Mom as she normally sends something by mail order, and as it wasn’t really my birthday until the following Monday I put it on the kitchen counter and continued to pick the place up.

I was excited, my partner Theo, myself and our great friend Clare were heading off to Kauai for 5-days to celebrate my birthday. We were packed and wanted to come home to a clean house because we were returning on my actual birthday and would no doubt be continuing the celebration then too. Some say if you live in Hawaii you are already on vacation! But there’s no place like Kauai and no matter where you live, getting away to a place where we could really chill out was way past due. Plus, I knew we were going zip lining and on a fantasy snorkeling trip to the Forbidden Island so I was ecstatic that finally today was the day.

As I vacuumed the dining area I kept wondering what could possibly be in that box, I mean – it was really heavy. Every so often I would go and fiddle with it and wonder. Should I pull the packing slip out of the plastic pouch? No, don’t spoil the surprise I thought, and on with cleaning I would go. But each time I passed the box I would touch it. Lift it a little. Wonder about it. Sooo heavy – what could it be?

And then it hit me – suddenly – almost as if it only just appeared – I noticed written by hand on the top left corner the words “25 copies” Oh my golly gosh – I realized that this box could be MY BOOKS. I don’t mean my book order, or books that had been sent as a gift or anything like that, I mean, MY BOOKS – the 25 books my publisher was due to send when “WORLD FAMOUS” my very first book ever was published.

I let out a yelp, grabbed the phone and speed dialed Theo “QUICK GET HOME – I THINK MY BOOK IS HERE!!!”

In the fridge was a special bottle of Moet Chandon champagne, a gift from my parents given specifically for the important day that my book finally arrived. The thing is, that bottle of champagne had been chilling in our fridge for over two and a half years! I’d almost gotten to the point where I thought this day would never come. Delays, problems, issues, more problems and then a whole years delay because my publisher decided to push my book into a different fiscal period. I had eye balled that champagne for a long time and then suddenly out of nowhere it seemed it was right here, right now.

Was it really my book or was this box a false alarm?

Theo came in. I opened the box, not even noticing that plastered on the side of it was another label that read “WORLD FAMOUS – 25 copies” that I had somehow missed earlier.

Box open and there it was. “WORLD FAMOUS” my book – 25 copies of it staring right at me. It was a beautiful sight, a beautiful beautiful vision. Those bright red covers, the bold type face proclaiming the title “WORLD FAMOUS” and there right below it my name, me, David Tyreman, a real bona fide author. I burst into tears, appreciation, pride, relief, joy, satisfaction, disbelief and excitement all overwhelmed me. Then I busted open the champagne, we celebrated, I wrote out the first few dedications, to Theo, my parents and Clare and knew that this really was to be the mother of all BIRTHDAY WEEKENDS!

And boy did we celebrate.

NEXT UP… the story of my birthday dinner at the Restaurant Barracuda in Hanalei Bay, Kauai

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 11:24 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.