I think some people were surprised (in a good way) at my socks-capades yesterday. Not that I had anything to do with the socknapping. Ahem. In any case, my family has always been rather good at laughing at ourselves and even better at pulling practical jokes on each other.
For instance, my the guys in my dad’s alley at work (that’s what they called their section of the post office where they pitched up their routes), they were always pulling jokes on one another. My dad would come home and have us hunt up props for him to bring in. One time, I remember he had me use fabric paints to make a shirt for his friend Roger. I don’t remember exactly what was going on, but it was making fun of Roger’s supposedly stinky breath. (Perhaps they were poking fun at his lunch choices? Who knows.) I do remember it was one of the rare times my dad was genuinely happy. And laughing – I remember the laughing.
Another time that stands out requires a bit more explanation. It was back when I was a senior in high school and my mom – my dear, sweet, lovely mom who had been a stay-at-home mom until my junior year when my baby sister started kindergarten – well, she started to slip a little. Oh, she didn’t lose her marbles or anything nearly as interesting as all that. I think it was more along the lines that she started to feel it that her babies were growing up. Her oldest baby was about to leave for college and so she felt safe in regressing a little bit. For instance: she had a tiny little plastic dinosaur that one of us must have gotten from one of those quarter gumball machines you find at grocery stores. She named her dinosaur (was it Stanley?) and started talking to him…mostly when we weren’t paying her enough attention. It was all for fun, never to be taken seriously, but she kept going even though we teased her. One day I got it into my mind that it would be hilarious if Stanley hung himself with dental floss from my mom’s fruit basket. He even left a suicide note along the lines of, “I can’t take it! Having an old, 40-something housewife for my only companion is too much! Goodbye cruel world aaaaaaaahhh!…….” My mom was mock-shocked – but she got over it quickly. In fact, I would say she got over it right around the time she stole my toothbrush as revenge and left me ransom notes and a treasure map to follow in the toothbrush holder.
And then there was the time I killed my mom’s Snowbaby. I think that is my favorite prank. (Quite possibly because I’ve forgotten an even better one. Details.) As you might have figured out, my mom collects the Snowbabies figurines you can buy at Hallmark. She lurves them. Like, luuuuuuuuurves them-loves them. So do I actually, and I plan to inherit them. I probably should have remembered that before I pulled my prank. In any case, my mom had set out all of her Snowbabies on the bookcase like she usually does. She had removed the books, put down the layer of fake snow, and set up little scenes of Snowbaby revelry. Like I said – she adores them. Because my mom rarely gets what she wants instead of what she needs, we usually treat her by purchasing several new Snowbabies for her every year. That particular Christmas (I think I was in college), my mom had received a large, plush, posable polar bear that was created for the Snowbabies line. While my mom was cleaning up the wrapping paper and such after we had demolished opened our presents, I took her polar bear into the other room where her Snowbabies display was, pushed his front legs down and stuck his butt up in the air (like he had pounced on something), and pushed over a Snowbaby in front of him. Except it wasn’t quite the right effect. So I took a white napkin, pooled some ketchup on it, and arranged the napkin next to the Snowbaby’s head. Excellent. Now it looked like the polar bear had killed it. I showed everyone else what I had done and waited for my mom to find it. It didn’t take long. “Kate Marie!” echoed across the house. I have no idea why she thought it was me. Sure, Kim and Rhi probably wouldn’t have thought to do it (though they would have helped), but Joey was equally as capable of masterminding that sort of prank! Thankfully everyone thought it was hilarious. I even have pictures lying around here somewhere.
See? So, really, stuff like what will happen to Mr. Sock (dun, dun, dunnnnnh!) have a long and storied history in my family. Maybe that’s why we all sleep with one eye open!
