That eerily recognizable ‘thump-thump-thump-thump’ accompanied my car’s shudder as I pulled off the road. A car full of beer, gin, snacks and party accessories, and I had a flat tire.

Luckily I was in my neighborhood, and with Andy’s help we got the car’s spare on and we limped it home. Tonight was going to be a big night; I had thrown big parties before, but I couldn’t really predict the scale of this one.

The theme was simple: come in disguise. I had the usual fro/pilot glasses/handlebar moustache costume planned, complete with a kitchen sink strainer as my medallion. Invitations went out to everyone we had even known. Little did I know that some of my friends, led by the sneaky Cynthia, were planning to surprise me.

On Friday morning I accidentally received an e-mail detailing their plans: it had been sent to everyone, suggesting that instead of going for a variety of costumes, that everyone…. everyone should dress up as a ninja, and act like it was a coincidence. I considered blowing the plan wide open… but then thought that no one would take it seriously, and it would be fun having ninjas on the dance floor.

Saturday night came. I dressed up as the 70s stallion. Dave a redneck. Andy as practically Shinobi himself. Then came the atendees. First was Ann, who came with a cake to surprise Cynthia with (her birthday had just passed) and also to “reprogram” attendees who did not come in costume.

Then came the first batch of close friends. All dressed as ninjas. Predictable. One was wearing pink and used stilettos as a weapon which attached to the back of her mask. Cynthia and Phil were sporting ninja stars.

Then came some more friends, also as ninja.

Then came more ninjas.

And more.

And more.

My doctor and his wife came, as a black and white ninja, her with a sculpted white mask over her face and him with sunglasses, with real swords. They didn’t even speak!

Another friend, Alex came as a cowboy. Ann reprogrammed him into a Geisha girl within seconds.

More ninjas came.

As usual, I had speakers and lights set up in the garage to make the ultimate dance floor, which was soon flooded by ninjas.

Usually there is just one crowd at my parties. It moves from outside, to the dance floor, to the living room, to the snack room. But that night, there was a crowd for every room.

Cynthia gathered everyone onto the dance floor for a photo, and we surprised her with the cake. When the tunes cut on, everyone stayed there, and we continued to dance until around 11:30, when we were hit by a horribly timed power cut. It lasted around six or seven minutes, and we lost around 1/3 of the attendees, but the rest of the crowd stayed for a few more hours, and the last of us thrashed out our frustrations to some metal at the night.

Even in my days of shooting ninja films, I’ve never seen so many. And dancing too! Here are more photos (thanks to Dave):