Wednesday, April 1, 2009 10:23 PM CDT
COLUMN: Wave and clap if you like foolin' around every day
By PENNY WEAVER, News Editor
pweaver@jg-tc.com
Let me be the first to wish everyone a very happy April Fools’ Day!
Now, now, now — don’t think the joke’s on me. I know that April Fools’ Day officially was Wednesday. But I’m proposing that every day should be AFD — we use an acronym for everything these days; why not holidays? — because it’s just so much fun.
I’ve always enjoyed playing tricks on people — harmless pranks, mind you. And I see no reason why such shenanigans should be limited to only one day a year.
Perhaps I get my mischievousness from my dad.
I remember that he used to play tricks on the maintenance man at the post office where they worked. In the basement — where the janitor arrived early in the morning before everyone else, usually while it was still dark — Dad once tied a string to the inside of the door knob, ran it elaborately through one or two rooms, and attached the other end to an aluminum ladder.
I still chuckle imagining the loud clatter that metal made on concrete in that basement bright and early when the maintenance man was half asleep and opened that door.
Dad also mentioned a stool that same poor co-worker of his used. The stool usually sat up against a workbench that had a lower shelf, about the height of the rung on the stool. Some sneaky little elf apparently took one screw and fastened the stool to the shelf, so that when the maintenance man tried to pull out his seat, it was to no avail.
I don’t think Dad was ever present when these particular pranks reached their peak. He was more disciplined than I am: I like to be there when my victim — um, I mean, my good-natured target — discovers the trickery.
My sisters and I played a lot of tricks on our family friend, Dianne, when we were kids. My mom and Dianne met each other when they were in college, so Dianne has always been like a cool aunt to us girls. She is so fun.
And Dianne isn’t just fun because she’s silly and always supportive in our life’s endeavors. She’s also fun for playing tricks.
She has the best combination of gullibility — um, I mean, purity of heart and innocence — and being a good sport of anyone I’ve ever known. We girls teased her enough to make any other person angry, but she takes it well. I think she’s made of steel.
Dianne came to visit once when we were kids, and before she arrived we set up a thin speaker behind the living room curtains and ran the long cord under and behind the couch and around the corner to our room. We knew she’d sleep on the couch as usual, with her head so that the curtains were a couple of feet behind her.
After bedtime, we girls met surreptitiously in one bedroom and hooked our electronic keyboard up to the speaker cord.
Having tested this trick out, we flipped the switches to some kind of cosmic or outer space sound and hit one note.
Then we waited, counting out the seconds carefully. We hit another note.
We did this a few times, and then one of my sisters went to the kitchen — near the living room — as if to get a drink of water. My mom, who knew what we were up to, appeared in the living room as Dianne, in her long nightgown, was peering curiously behind the VCR, near the curtains.
She thought there was something wrong with the VCR. Mom clued her in, and she’s never let us forget how rotten we were to her.
That’s just one story.
I’ve helped run people’s underwear up flag poles, put garlic on toothbrushes, books in pillows, broken crackers in beds (does anyone else still remember a “shivaree”?), and short-sheeted beds.
My best practical joke ever was in high school. I’ll try to make this story short. We had an informal concert, and several of us set out to play a prank on our band director.
We didn’t particularly like “Sousa,” as we called him. We’d already played some, um, “jokes” on him that I’d better not detail here.
Anyhow, some of us arrived early for the concert, and — lo and behold — Sousa asked us to hand out programs to the audience as they came in. Why sure, we’d be glad to! We added an insert that explained our joke for the night, and, later in the concert, we pounced.
We had poster-board-sized signs that said “CLAP” on one side and “WAVE” on the other side in huge letters. Sousa had his back to the band as he spoke briefly to the crowd, and he paused a moment at the microphone after speaking. The applause died down.
We popped up our signs. Suddenly, everyone started clapping again. Sousa glanced up at the crowd, looked a bit surprised, stepped back up to the microphone and said, “Thank you. Thank you.”
I never thought we’d use the other side of the sign, but my buddy encouraged me to, so with the same timing, we hoisted up the “WAVE” sign as Sousa stopped briefly while speaking later and studied his notecards. He glanced up — then looked again and stared.
The entire crowd in that high school gym — younger siblings, teachers, parents, even the principal — was waving at him.
It was hysterical! I’ll never forget the look on his face.
It seems to me that in these days of depressing economic news and all the other negative nonsense in the world, we need laughter more than ever. I think a few harmless jokes and pranks can help us out a lot.
My hat’s off to all the jokesters — like me — and the patient, thick-skinned, long-suffering good sports out there who make the frivolity possible. Let’s make every day April Fools’ Day.
Shouldn’t everyone be in favor of more fooling around?
I mean that in the pranks and jokes sense, of course. Yeah. That’s it.
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Rotty wrote on Apr 1, 2009 11:45 PM:
I love to fool around!
(oops, did I say that)
LOL!
Yeah, we need more of that, pranks & jokes that is.
[snicker]
Thanks for another great column, Penny, Hun! "