Surprise!

Surprises catch us off-guard, after all, that’s what makes it a surprise.

According to Homer, the ancient Greeks had been trying to conquer the city of Troy for 10 years to no avail. The Greeks (Odysseus) built a gigantic wooden horse, the horse was the symbol of the city of Troy and considered sacred. He left the statue at the gates of Troy, and pretended to leave. The Trojans believed the Greeks had finally given up and left the beautiful statue as a peace offering, so they wheeled it into the gates of the city. However, hidden inside the hollow horse were soldiers. During the night, the soldiers slipped out of the statue and opened the gates to let in the entire Greek Army. The Trojans learned to “beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” because gifts can contain unexpected surprises.

Today, you may receive an email that congratulates you for winning a grand prize – or maybe a gift card — all you have to do is “click” — but instead of receiving the gift card you were expecting, you are surprised with a “Trojan Horse,” but this Trojan Horse is the kind that infects your computer with malware. Surprise visitors can corrupt your database.

In August, 1776, Gen. George Washington’s troops suffered a crushing defeat from the British in the Battle for New York, allowing Britain to maintain control of the valuable port of New York as well as the Hudson River. By December, Washington’s troops were demoralized, weary, cold, and hungry. Many had no shoes. Nevertheless, on a wintry, snowy Christmas night, they silently crossed the ice-filled Delaware under cover of darkness, then marched through snow to Trenton, NJ, to surprise 1,500 Hessian mercenaries who were fighting for the British. The Hessians had clearly been celebrating the Christmas holiday. They never imagined the colonists would attack on Christmas night in the middle of an icy storm. Surprise guests can bring more than just a bottle of wine as a hostess gift.

The United States was surprised on a Sunday morning in December, 1941, when more than 350 Japanese planes lifted off six aircraft carriers and caught the American soldiers, based at Pearl Harbor, completely by surprise. The surprise attack, devised by Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku (who had studied at Harvard) destroyed the American fleet and killed more than 2,400 Americans. Isoroku reportedly wrote in his diary, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” The sleeping giant, once awakened, plotted revenge.

Alfred Hitchcock, the movie director famous for producing tension-filled films with intricate plots and surprise endings, once said, “Revenge is sweet and not fattening.”

Three years later, in Oct. 1944, Gen. Douglas McArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz, joined forces and got their revenge by, surprisingly, attacking the Japanese fleet in the Philippines. McArthur and Nimitz were not the best of friends, their relationship was described as a power struggle over who would command the war in the Pacific. However, when the two of them got together, they demolished the Japanese Imperial Navy and that enabled the U.S. invasion of the Philippines. Some surprises can be a real bombshell.

I’ve always preferred simple surprises that make me happy, like finding $5 in an old coat pocket. I can be surprised by an unexpected twist in a novel. I even like a surprise birthday party, as long as no one mentions my age. I do not want to beware “anyone” bringing me gifts or trying to corrupt my database, because I would have to plot my sweet revenge – and as Hitchcock said, “revenge is sweet and not fattening.”

You can surprise Lynda at lyndaabegg@charter.net. Opinions expressed in this column represent those of the writer only and are not necessarily shared by the newspaper.