I’m thinking this morning of tricks, planned events to make someone laugh. Jim and I used to do this a lot. The log behind my rear tire that I merely gunned the engine and drove over. His getting caught in the men’s room at work, standing at the urinal with a penknife in his hand to cut the thread I’d sewn into the opening of his underwear.
And with our neighbor, Andy, when he was alive. The gaudy plastic ducks we placed on each other’s front lawns every time we’d be away on vacation. The 10-lb. zucchini Andy stuck within the leaves of my cucumber plants. The deer target I put in his corn. The monster pumpkin seeds I planted among his normal pumpkin plants. The ones unplanned, but wished we’d had: Andy complaining about the white wine he found in the back hall, then Barb telling him it was one of the water jugs for flushing toilets when the power was out. The gasoline-fiery cheese-stuffed jalapeno poppers I made and ran over to him because we didn’t know that some were so potent.
It’s been a while since we’ve played tricks on each other. It’s time, I think, to create some mischief.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology