No, it’s not April 1, the high holy day of practical jokers, but as I write this, Mother Nature is about to play her favorite practical joke on the Northland yet again. She waits until the little kids have their Halloween costumes picked out or one of their family members has spent hours sewing a cute, fuzzy puppy dog costume. They are set to go out and gather up the neighborhood’s supply of candy, and boom! She dumps snow on them!
One year she was having such a good time watching the little Halloweeners trudge through the streets, unzipping their snowsuits to show that they really were Spiderman, that she forgot to turn off the storm and Duluth got 3 feet or more of snow.
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If you are a Duluthian or Superiorite, I know you remember exactly where you were on Oct. 31, 1991, and the days that followed, as we tried to dig out and make our way to the grocery store. We had just moved out to 20 acres of woods, 10 miles north of the city and were stranded until 2 a.m. three days later when the big front-end loader came rumbling around the bend in our road, flashing its lights like a spaceship coming in for a landing in the tire-high snow.
Oh, ha, ha, Mother Nature. Big joke. Hope you enjoyed it.
The practical jokers I have encountered usually just want to make you laugh, even if it’s at yourself. They are known as “pranksters." They are not the belittling bullies who want to cause emotional distress or bodily harm. They are known as “pains in the neck."
Wikipedia says that people have been playing practical jokes since Etruscan times, when the first rudimentary whoopee cushion was made from a sheep’s bladder and used with hysterically funny effect by the maker when his wife sat upon his lap.
I think with the advent of “politically correct," many practical jokers have retired, but groups of any kind who spend many hours together still carry on. I’ve told you about the time the Twin Cities metro bagpipe band traveled to a Chicago competition and stayed overnight in a motel.
Our son, their pipe major, woke up in the morning to find that the rest of the band had spent the night duct-taping his door shut. The entire door was covered except for a tiny piece cut out by the peephole. They wanted him to be able to see them laughing.
College students are also a practical joking group, having unlimited ideas about the most outrageous, impossible and hilarious location to place a Volkswagon Bug automobile. In Vancouver, it was hanging suspended from the middle of the Lions Gate Bridge.
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My husband has reported about the time he and his cronies got tired of a particularly obnoxious fellow student and filled his bathtub to the top with clear gelatin.
Practical joking may be part of a gene passed down in families. My father-in-law was a relentless practical joker, but never in a mean way. Here’s the story: He always made a big Sunday breakfast when he was at the family cabin. Pancakes, bacon, eggs, the works. I was certainly impressed the first time he made breakfast for me. I was the last one to come to the table and everybody else was already eating.
I sat down just as Dad came out from the kitchen, carrying a big plateful of pancakes with bacon and eggs on the side. He said, “Now, don’t wait. Eat your pancakes while they’re hot.” So, I dug in. The eggs were perfect, and the bacon was good, but boy, were those pancakes ever tough! I couldn’t even cut them with my knife. I tried again and again.
Omigosh, I didn’t want to embarrass the cook by saying his pancakes were inedible when he’d gone to all that trouble for me. Maybe I could hide them up my sleeve.
I looked up and everybody was ducking their heads and snickering. What the heck? And there, watching from the kitchen doorway, was a twinkling pair of blue eyes and a smirky grin. With a closer look, I could see what was wrong. He’d carefully placed a layer of gauze inside every pancake as he poured them, just for me, just as he did for every other “first-timer."
Dad Myers had fortunately acquired a like-minded friend and they usually only played tricks on each other. His jokester friend happened to be a Catholic priest who loved to come to his house and play poker. One time, the good Father had had some extensive dental work done the week before and was glad to have some card games to look forward to.
When he arrived, he was offered a glass of scotch and the games began. As he played and sipped, the priest was embarrassed to see that he had splashed his drink all down his front and his chin was dripping. He thought it was his missing teeth causing the problem, but one glance across the poker table at his host’s grin and he knew something was up. When he examined his drink, he discovered the scotch had been presented in a dribble glass! Pretty funny.
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However, the good Father retaliated by slipping a nice small package of Limburger cheese into Dad’s raincoat pocket. That was in the winter. Dad Myers wouldn’t find it for quite a while. Not until the spring rains came. The smell was pretty bad by then.
Maybe not as earth-shaking as 3 feet of snow with high winds and a shocking wind chill, but bad enough to cause a stampede of people who had someplace else they had to be whenever he and his raincoat entered the room.
Good one, Father Damien!
The Trust Project
