In the great game of practical joke tag, apparently I’m “It.”
I don’t know about your household, but in the Reed-Lambert abode, we’ve always had a little bit of unspoken rivalry in practical joking.
Sometimes my husband Arnie and I might go for months and not think of a dastardly deed to pull on each other.
And then, just when we think the other one’s guard is down, WHAM, down the hammer falls.
(hee, hee, hee.)
Except this time the joke’s on me, and I wish somebody could help me think of a good one to top it.
Arnie got the last jab when I went off to church one Sunday night not too long ago. Arnie stayed behind, having been horse riding and not getting home in time to clean up and get ready.
I never saw it coming. But when I crested the hill toward my house on the way back from church, I definitely saw where it had landed.
Folks, the joke was on me, and this time that man I married went too far, dragging my poor horse, Grady, into the mix.
If you’ve ever been around horses or cows, you’re probably familiar with the purple iodine mixture that’s used as first aid for the occasional cut or scratch.
As far as staining power goes, it’s there for the long haul.
Well, as I drove up my road, from nearly a mile away, I saw that Arnie had transformed poor old Grady into a big white walking billboard.
There on my beautiful white horse (the horse I love and the one Arnie is forever teasing for his “slight” weight problem) written in huge purple iodine letters were these words: “Horse for Sale – Cheap!”
My jaw dropped as I pulled into the driveway. As Grady m moseyed through the field, I saw there was more. On his other side, looming for the world to see was yet another “For Sale – Kid’s Horse.”
And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Emblazoned across Grady’s hefty backside was – I swear – my phone number.
I could have croaked. There was my sweet Grady, munching his grass buffet in the pasture, just as proud as you please, completely oblivious to the ridiculous message he was sporting.
When I stormed into the house, Arnie was innocently watching television. I, however, was not amused.
I let him have it with both barrels. While I’d been sitting in church, innocent as an angel, Arnie had been a little devil.
Heathen!
It was only a few minutes before a still-laughing Arnie was alternately hosing and scrubbing Grady down. The skin nearly turned pink but the trace of the purple iodine message – like Arnie’s laughter – lingered.
Eventual rain and sun have now faded the message beyond legibility. And I’m thinking it’s payback time.
If I could just think of something equally evil… similarly sinister… comparably conniving.
I thought about painting a white shoe polish message on Arnie’s brown horse, but that lacks originality , and I don’t want to drag another hapless creature into the mix.
I could short sheet the bed… maybe sneak up and pour a glass of ice water over his head when he gets in the shower…
(Nope, I’ve done those before.)
There’s always the old “clear plastic wrap over the toilet bowl” trick… or putting a UK bumper sticker somewhere on his vehicle. (He’s one of those strange birds who roots for even stranger birds at a school slightly to our north.)
Better yet, I could put some Groovy Grape Kool-Aid powder in the shower head just before Arnie gets in and wait for his reaction to the ensuing purple hair-do.
Heh, heh, heh.
Arnie may not care so much for purple hair.
But then neither, I’ll wager, did Grady.
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