Okay, now that I can post again, I'm going to give you storytime. It will make me feel brilliant after yet another job rejection.
Pranks That Succeeded, by Lisa Lockhart.
My family has a history of pranks that backfire, and I am no different. I can, however, point to three times in my life when pranks of mine succeeded, and no, I did not steal these little triumphs from someone who is now under a Memory Charm. Lord knows these pranks can afford me little celebrity anyway.
First, a collaborative effort. Our family had a cat named Missy who sometimes made her displeasure known with a deliciously underpawed style. One occasion when Dad had displeased her, she used his coat for a litterbox during the night. Then a few years later she did the same thing in the tub. Dad complained about this, hinting that we ought to administer some sort of stern justice, and so Mom got the bright idea of molding Tootsie Rolls and putting them on his pillow, with little indentations in the fabric meant to suggest paw prints. So we did; and when Dad came home from work we all boiled around him: "Dad! You have to come see what Missy did!" We preceded him into his room and showed him the catastrophe...and while he was trying to think of something to say, I went over, picked up one of the brown masses, and ate it. Oooh, you should have seen his face!
Second, a solo project. I had long been familiar with the time-honored April Fools' trick of wrapping a rubber band around the vegetable sprayer so that when the unsuspecting victim turns on the water, it soaks them. I did this in the teachers' lounge my senior year of high school. Nothing was ever said, but when I went to inspect the empty room later in the day, I found that the little handle had been torn clean off the sprayer. I never broadcast my success; the violence done to the sprayer suggested that my triumph would be lessened if I revealed my identity. To this day I don't know who the victim was.
Third, a brilliant success that depended almost entirely on chance -- and on a certain underestimation of my talent at accent and inflection. I was working as a floater in the library system, bouncing from branch to branch, and I discovered one August morning that it was my parents' anniversary and I didn't have time to get them a card or do anything for them. I did, however, have just enough time to do something to them. *evil grin* I may as well say at the outset that there is no point in trying to play a phone trick on Mom; she just knows her little darlins' voices too well. Besides, Dad was a more satisfying mark, as the shock waves that go through his consciousness when someone has the audacity to play a joke on him are just too priceless to forgo. Anyway, I called Mom at work and got Dad's work number, saying I planned to call him and prank him -- though I didn't say how, and I barely had an idea myself. I called, expecting to get him, expecting to flub and start laughing, expecting him to recognize my voice straight out of the gate.
I got his voice mail. Using my best Beavis-and-Butthead voice, I said: "Uh-h -- hello? This is a message for David Inman? We, like, have an anniversary sing-a-gram to give him? but we can't find his office. So we'll, like, call back after lunchtime. Okay? bye." And I hung up calmly and went back to work.
My work day lasted late, and so it was dark when I got home to my parents' house. I walked in, and I was the woman of the hour. Apparently Dad never recognized my voice, and had spent the rest of the day hiding in his office, dreading the anniversary sing-a-gram. He told his secretary to keep the sing-a-gram at bay if at all possible. But neither Beavis nor Butthead appeared to humiliate him, so he went home triumphantly and crowed to Mom when she got home, "Your anniversary sing-a-gram never arrived." "What anniversary sing-a-gram?" "The sing-a-gram that you arranged to come to my office. I got this voice mail message from this woman of obviously low intelligence saying they were lost and couldn't find my office. And they never did. So hah." "I never sent you an anniversary sing-a-gram," Mom told him, a glimmer forming in her mind, "but Lisa did call to get your phone number so she could prank you."
GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!
All of that was so brilliant, I couldn't have planned it better than that.
I am writing this story as my memoirs, because with my family luck, I don't feel I could possibly tempt fate any longer by continuing my jokester career. Which reminds me of a quote from Hank the Cowdog: "When sliding down the bannister of life, be careful not to get any splinters in your career." So, I will sign off for now, and go in search of a mirror and pair of tweezers. *maniacal laughter*
Pranks That Succeeded, by Lisa Lockhart.
My family has a history of pranks that backfire, and I am no different. I can, however, point to three times in my life when pranks of mine succeeded, and no, I did not steal these little triumphs from someone who is now under a Memory Charm. Lord knows these pranks can afford me little celebrity anyway.
First, a collaborative effort. Our family had a cat named Missy who sometimes made her displeasure known with a deliciously underpawed style. One occasion when Dad had displeased her, she used his coat for a litterbox during the night. Then a few years later she did the same thing in the tub. Dad complained about this, hinting that we ought to administer some sort of stern justice, and so Mom got the bright idea of molding Tootsie Rolls and putting them on his pillow, with little indentations in the fabric meant to suggest paw prints. So we did; and when Dad came home from work we all boiled around him: "Dad! You have to come see what Missy did!" We preceded him into his room and showed him the catastrophe...and while he was trying to think of something to say, I went over, picked up one of the brown masses, and ate it. Oooh, you should have seen his face!
Second, a solo project. I had long been familiar with the time-honored April Fools' trick of wrapping a rubber band around the vegetable sprayer so that when the unsuspecting victim turns on the water, it soaks them. I did this in the teachers' lounge my senior year of high school. Nothing was ever said, but when I went to inspect the empty room later in the day, I found that the little handle had been torn clean off the sprayer. I never broadcast my success; the violence done to the sprayer suggested that my triumph would be lessened if I revealed my identity. To this day I don't know who the victim was.
Third, a brilliant success that depended almost entirely on chance -- and on a certain underestimation of my talent at accent and inflection. I was working as a floater in the library system, bouncing from branch to branch, and I discovered one August morning that it was my parents' anniversary and I didn't have time to get them a card or do anything for them. I did, however, have just enough time to do something to them. *evil grin* I may as well say at the outset that there is no point in trying to play a phone trick on Mom; she just knows her little darlins' voices too well. Besides, Dad was a more satisfying mark, as the shock waves that go through his consciousness when someone has the audacity to play a joke on him are just too priceless to forgo. Anyway, I called Mom at work and got Dad's work number, saying I planned to call him and prank him -- though I didn't say how, and I barely had an idea myself. I called, expecting to get him, expecting to flub and start laughing, expecting him to recognize my voice straight out of the gate.
I got his voice mail. Using my best Beavis-and-Butthead voice, I said: "Uh-h -- hello? This is a message for David Inman? We, like, have an anniversary sing-a-gram to give him? but we can't find his office. So we'll, like, call back after lunchtime. Okay? bye." And I hung up calmly and went back to work.
My work day lasted late, and so it was dark when I got home to my parents' house. I walked in, and I was the woman of the hour. Apparently Dad never recognized my voice, and had spent the rest of the day hiding in his office, dreading the anniversary sing-a-gram. He told his secretary to keep the sing-a-gram at bay if at all possible. But neither Beavis nor Butthead appeared to humiliate him, so he went home triumphantly and crowed to Mom when she got home, "Your anniversary sing-a-gram never arrived." "What anniversary sing-a-gram?" "The sing-a-gram that you arranged to come to my office. I got this voice mail message from this woman of obviously low intelligence saying they were lost and couldn't find my office. And they never did. So hah." "I never sent you an anniversary sing-a-gram," Mom told him, a glimmer forming in her mind, "but Lisa did call to get your phone number so she could prank you."
GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!
All of that was so brilliant, I couldn't have planned it better than that.
I am writing this story as my memoirs, because with my family luck, I don't feel I could possibly tempt fate any longer by continuing my jokester career. Which reminds me of a quote from Hank the Cowdog: "When sliding down the bannister of life, be careful not to get any splinters in your career." So, I will sign off for now, and go in search of a mirror and pair of tweezers. *maniacal laughter*
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