Only One Prank

Gee whiz... it is cold here and drizzling too.

I only had one prank played on me today... and it was a good one, I must admit. Someone who will not admit guilt knows some history on me.

You see many years ago, when I drove an English Ford Cortina... your basic square box on wheels, and I had my bran spanking new baby... first ever... with me at my parent's home in the woods by the river near Cantrell-Buckley Park in Ruch, Or. which is outside of Jacksonville.

It was time to go and so my mother said "Go out and warm up that car... don't put that baby in there when it's this cold." Seemed like sound advice. So good mom that I was trying to be... out I go to my parent's garage, which was flat and level, despite the fact that they lived on the top of a big hill. Now before you jump to conclusions, I am not an idiot. I swear to all that is just and holy that I set the hand brake. I did and went back inside after firing up my little chugger. I could hear it chugging away behind me when I sat back down inside the house to wait for it to get all warm and cozy.

Maybe ten minutes passed and I happened to notice that I did not hear any chugging. I had to investigate, sure that the engine had died of starvation, believing that I must not have pulled the choke button out enough. Only when I got to the garage, it stared back at me in an uncomfortablly empty way. No car. Oh dear.

You know what you do in cases like this... you let your mind tell you the silliest stories, like my dad must have borrowed it. Yeah, that's it. He must have run to the store for smokes or something. Yeah. Yeah. I relayed the theory to my mother, who agreed that this was sensable. My dad was that way.

Only... HOLY POO... isn't that dad walking past the window wall? In the WRONG direction to have come from the garage without enough time to park and run around the house the other way? Where the frack was the car then?

So I ran outside to the garage again to stare at the empty place. Wait... wait... I could hear chugging. It was some distance away, down hill of course, but it was chugging. Phew, the car was not hurt then! All I had to do was follow the chugging sound... and it was starting to sound a bit rough like it m ight die before I could figure out where it was. I began this weird shuffle run that comes from hurrying in the woods in high heels. The heels sink you know.

You have to understand the landscape here and the iron will this little car had to have had to avoid every small tree, sapling, brush or rock that may have stopped it's wandering down, down, down to the only solid, large oak tree in the area... where it wrapped it's trunk around this oak and gave itself one weird new look. I stared at it, still chugging valiantly. We had just gotten it sanded and primed all over for a paint job that was supposed to happen the next day. Now it had new issues. (No, I did not cause the other issues prior to the primer!) I was not going to be popular at home that evening. Sigh. But to it's credit, it drove it's winding way back up the hill to the garage and was warm and toasty for the baby. I laid a block of wood under the tire this time. I do learn.

So today when some of my kids told me that my car was rolling down hill, I laughed a bit nervously and tried to ignore it. But that chugging sound started up at the back of my head and I began to worry... could this be true? It was only a prank right? I mean, the car was on the flat. Of course, the Cortina was on the flat so long ago too. A bit of nail biting and I was almost ready to go and look... but then the creme of the prank showed up. My boss came to aske me if I could move my car... it was blocking the parking lot. Off I ran thinking "Oh sh*t... please don't let it hit any other cars."

Nope. There it sat. Safe between its lines, on the flat where it was left. I got ribbed and there were lots of laughs over how my face looked at the end. Smart asses. I have to admit, it was a good one. I almost didn't fall for it. They are getting more clever. I'm going to have to stop telling my stories of past traumas.

How did your first day of April go? Here it was so cold and wet and miserable that the prank was a real plus! I hope your day was fun, safe and had some laughter.