the cheese stands alone

O Come All Ye Gullible

April Fool's Day, not surprisingly, is one of my favorite holidays. Any holiday that celebrates smartassery and pranks would have to be. Back in the day (don't you love that saying? Like in times past I'd only work in a job one day before they'd wise up and fi.... hey, wait a minute!) when I worked in an office environment, people would actually skip work on April 1st, in fear of the havoc I'd wreak.
Wreak.
Wreak.
Wreak.
If you say that over and over, it sounds like the "Psycho" shower scene noise, doesn't it? Cool.
Anyway, now that I work among in an environment that is so rigid and lacking in a sense of joie de vie that it makes Plymouth Rock Puritans seem like hedonists who got tossed out of the Playboy mansion for being too wild and crazy (Repressive? I got scolded for making a joke about the undeniably ugly uniform pants we're forced to wear.... "You do NOT make fun of The Pants. The Pants are an invaluable part of our team morale! NOW DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY!")
Where the hell was I?
....
.....
.......
Oh yeah.
So now that I'm working in No Fun Central, I miss those days of missing mouse balls and swapped keyboard keys and false pink slips. But now that I think about it, the best prank ever didn't happen in an office.
I pulled it in a mall.
Heh heh heh.
She said "pulled it."

Remember those t-shirt shops that abounded during the mid-80s? You could go in and have little fuzzy letters or crinkly plastic pictures heat-nailed to any t-shirt you liked, creating the illusion that no one else EVER had thought to put a photo of a kitten dangling from a branch with the logo "hang in there, baby!" on a black Hanes Beefy T.
You style maven you.
If it was a really up-and-coming shop, you had an Airbrush Artist On Premises! Here! Now! Live! who was usually a failed art school student with a borrowed air compressor and a huge pot habit.
Most of the time, it was owned by absentee owners who just wanted to have a little income from a place that was lame enough to let their loser son Floyd be assistant manager, albeit in the family tradition, an absentee assistant manager. Fine with us working stiffs.
(hehehehe, she said "stiffs"..... oh shut up already.)

Tammy ran the place. I was just a lowly wage slave. Together, we tormented the guys who worked next door in the tool department at Sears. Especially poor hopelessly horny romantic Bumpy, who had a crush of elephantine proportions on Tammy, since she was about a foot taller and of a different species altogether.
What, you thought "Bumpy" was a nickname? It was a classification.

One day, on his semi-hourly cruise by the counter to see if Tammy was around and had changed her stance on beastiality, Bumpy mentioned that his birthday was in two weeks. Later, I mentioned it to Tammy. And on his next fly-by, Tammy and I told poor gullible Bumpy that we had ordered him A Present for his birthday.
Every day, for the next two weeks, we embellished and embroidered our hints.
Was anyone going to be home at Bumpy's to take delivery, because such a thing would need signatures, since the hauling company was very exclusive, as not many places even had such merchandise.
Would there be a crowbar handy to open the box?
What was his apartment building's pet policy?
Had he had a physical recently? With full innocuations?
Two weeks deadline came.... and went.
Had it arrived yet? we'd ask Bumpy. Did he like it? Wasn't it wonderful?
Not there yet, would be Bumpy's dejected reply.
Disappointment simmered for a week.
Finally, on Bumpy's next "hi, how are ya? Where's my gift? I'll take ten minutes with Tammy in an appliance carton if you want to substitute..." visit, I began to quiz Tammy.
Are you sure, I asked her, that the advertisement promised swift delivery?
Oh yes indeedy, she replied.
And are you sure, I asked, that we were clear on Bumpy's proper address?
Absolutely, she answered.
And when you called in the order, I asked, did they say anything about....
Me? she gasped. Me called in the order? I thought YOU called in the order!
Bumpy looked back and forth and back and forth and back and forth... and then Bumpy wandered off, not a word said.
I never saw Bumpy again, as the following week I got a new job away from the mall and, as retail relationships usually go, didn't keep in touch with Tammy.

....Until about 12 years later, I was back home visiting my mom, and nostalgically visited the mall. The t-shirt shop was still there. The airbrush stoner was still there. And Tammy was still there.
Nothing like stasis, is there?
So Tammy and I caught up a little, played "remember when?" and "whatever happened to?", and passed some time.
As I was getting ready to leave, I suddenly thought of something.
"Remember that guy we pulled the birthday gift prank on, Bummy or Bumpy or something? Wonder what ever happened to that poor schmuck."
Tammy blinked at me. "I married him. We got five kids."
I was dumbfoundedly silenced.
Tammy shrugged. "Well, I felt so bad, ya know? About how we screwed him with that joke? I had to do somethin', dint I? "

Heh heh heh... she said "screwed."

(inspired by Lee's rendition of all things pranky)

Posted by LeeAnn at April 1, 2004 06:48 AM | TrackBack