The other Jewish Elvis in Cajun country

After my aforementioned trip I flew into New Orleans on Feb. 1 (my birthday, for those of you who are bad friends). I had an early morning flight so I had been up since 5 a.m. and the airline lost my bag, so I was generally bedraggled and disgruntled.

My friend Kerry picked me up and whisked me away to New Orleans. Knowing me well, she immediately took me to a casino and split $40 between us, which we quickly lost at the blackjack table. We went to dinner and she started asking what I wanted to do for my birthday. At this point I still had a slight suspicion some kind of surprise might be planned, but I played along and suggested we round up the troops and head to Duvic's, a Baton Rouge martini bar.

As I called everyone and they all unflinchingly said they would meet me at Duvic's, I resigned myself to an uneventful birthday at the bar, like any other night except that my drinks would be paid for.

Kerry and I drove home and she dropped me off at my house so that I could take a much needed shower. Almost as soon as I got home, I got a knock on my door and there was a girl I had never seen before asking for help, saying she had just moved into the long-vacant house next door to mine.

"Sorry to bother you but I'm moving in next door and I just have one more item to move. It's a mattress and it's too heavy for me to move myself, could you give me a hand?"

Of course I obliged and in the midst of our small talk she opened the door to her new apartment and a couple dozen of my friends, dressed as me with masks bearing my face flicked on the lights and yelled surprise. After jumping back about 10 feet and nearly soiling my self, I took in the scene and realized that my friends weren't just dressed like me, they were wearing my clothes. Those who didn't have my clothes wore khakis and snowboarding-looking clothes. It was equally touching and creepy.

In one of the more complicated surprise parties I've ever been to, Kerry had organized a break in and, using a ladder and skills honed on the mean streets, several of my friends had gotten into my house through my bathroom window (about seven feet off the ground) and stolen my clothes. Another friend had printed up masks of my face from a photo taken of me last Mardi Gras and a friend of a friend who I had never met was drafted as my "new neighbor."

How did they get access to the adjacent house? Another friend had signed a lease there without telling me and, on her first night there, graciously agreed to host a rowdy drunken party. Everyone in the Baton Rouge crew knows how much I like theme parties and they had thrown me the ultimate theme-birthday party: a Druz-themed party. For good measure, the cops even showed up.

Topping it all of was the gift everyone pitched in to get. Lacking money, I have put off purchasing a bed after moving to my new place in early November (my old bed was reclaimed by my landlady, who had given it to my while I lived in my last apartment). Consequently, I had been sleeping on my couch for about three months. While comfy, as couches go, it was getting old and my friends bought me a pillow-top queen mattress and box-springs. Not to mention a couple bottles of whiskey, which were immediately poured down my throat.

To recap, that means I now have not only a couch and bed in my house, but a (wobbly) kitchen table, a desk and a coffee table. I think that's more furniture than I've owned the rest of my life combined.