Don't let the wait staff...

One evening in November we were all together celebrating the joyful occasion of my father's birthday.  It was an ideal evening, friends, family, and lots of Lacrima di Cristi Cabaret Sauvignon wine.  We even ate at our favorite Italian Restaurant, Torna di Sorrento in Elizabeth.  Everything was OK until it came time for us to sing Happy Birthday to my father.  You see unknown to my dad,we wanted to pull a prank on him by making the entire wait staff sing Happy Birthday to him. This was a risky move because my father had told us before how he disdained this "American" tradition, but ignoring the risk, we brazenly went forward with our plan, with Marcello of course being the one to encourage our risky endeavor. 

So the moment finally arrived,  everyone began singing as one of the waiters brought forth a piece of chocolate mouse cake.  Almost immediately I saw my dad fuming with anger.  His entire face turned a purplish  red, resembling very much the wine that we had just drunk.  He was so upset that he told the wait staff to stop singing at once...Fortunately they did not listen, and finished singing the song.  But my father was so upset by this gesture that he did not want to take any pictures after that.  My brothers and I chuckled because our birthday singing prank had worked.  But we did learn our lesson and the lesson was: DON'T LET THE WAIT STAFF SING HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUR ITALIAN FATHER!   It didn't make any sense why we derived so much pleasure from the incident, but at least we got a laugh out of it!