Revenge of the Grandkids
A good chunk of of my childhood was spent growing up in the vast expanses of the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas. I guess that makes me a “hillbilly” of sorts. But contrary to popular belief “hillbillies” are not as dumb as our stereotype suggests. Take myself for example. I know I’m intelligent…mainly because of the scores I made on all the tests. (Laugh here.)
Anyway, my grandfather, was a notorious prankster. Take for instance his gadget called, “The Lung Tester”. We were all subsequently introduced to this little device, including my dad. It supposedly measured how strong your lungs were. It did this by means of a tube you blew into and a spinning pinwheel gizmo which registered your score. Of course, when granddad tested himself it worked exactly in that fashion. Not so with us. As each of us blew into the machine our faces became engulfed in a thick layer of flour. We grandkids didn’t think it was so funny at the time…until dad got his turn. At that juncture, the prank became hilarious.
Then there was the time he offered me candy. It was a well known, chocolate covered laxative in disguise. Can anybody guess what happened shortly thereafter? That’s right. An urgent quick rush to the outhouse was in order. And once again he silently snuck up and locked the latch. You can read more about that little game he played at: http://hubpages.com/hub/GRANDFATHER-AND-THE-OUTHOUSE
Granddad had a hundred pranks and thought up new ways to torture us daily. Such as his little plastic squirt bottle with a drawing of a little baby peering down his diaper on it. It was filled with a yellowish liquid…which should have been a dead give-a-way.
“JIMMAEEEE”, he would call when looking to pull a joke on me. And I would come running. “Look at the little baby looking down his diaper Jimmy” he coaxed. I drew close and peered. As I did a stream of yellow liquid sprayed my face.
That was my life as a youngster. It was a constant parade of pranks by granddad. But there was a day of reckoning coming. I got older and decided the time had come for a little good natured revenge.
One day, as granddad was out chopping wood, my younger brother Mike and I devised a scheme to get even. We found some fishing line and an old fashioned metal bottle opener. We tied the line to the bottle opener and ran it from his bedroom into the next room where we slept. The bottle opener was suspended along the wall behind his headboard. We were careful to make sure it couldn’t be seen. Another one was also attached to the end of his blankets.
Bedtime arrived and the household bedded down for the evening. Mike and I waited patiently for Granddad to fall asleep. Soon we heard his familiar snore and the time had come. Tugging on the line the bottle opener thudded on the wooden floor waking him. The step was repeated numerous times until a muffled obscenity issued from his room and the line was jerked suddenly from my hands. “Ya’ll cut that out and go to sleep”, he bellowed. First phase was an apparent success.
Unbeknownst to us, he had waited until we had drifted off into peaceful slumber, relishing our victory. “Grampy”, as we affectionately called him, had slipped into our bedroom where we shared the same bed. We had gone to bed in our day clothes the evening before so we still had our shoes on. He then quietly tied our shoelaces together.
Early in the morning he rushed into our bedroom with a bucket of water screaming “FIRE, FIRE!!!” and proceeded to thoroughly douse us with it. Mike and I immediate leaped to our feet and frantically began to evacuate the premises. Mike went one way and I the other. Both of us promptly ended up face first on the floor. I never heard such guffawing in all my born days. “That’ll teach ya’ll”, he laughed. “Don’t mess with the master."
As always, he had the last…and best, laugh of all.
