By that
summer, I was hooked on the concept of Experiments in Devious Conducts of Humor
and I had become a sort of servant to the cause, so to speak. I eagerly awaited direction from M.O.M. and
carried out some of the dirtier tasks. Sometimes
I wonder if she didn’t think I would really follow through. At least she never asked me to pick up a
turd. Well, sort of.
My precious
baby sister had been born the summer I was eleven. M.O.M. was busy tending to a
new born, and I was busy having imaginary adventures in our back yard or riding
up and down the driveway on my bicycle.
One day while outside adventuring, I heard our dog barking in the back
yard. I came around the side of the
house in time to see boys about my age standing in the neighbor’s yard throwing
rocks at my dog and laughing. My
immediate reaction was to shout at them to stop. Naturally, these boys only responded by
throwing a rock at me. So I found their
father certain that he would rein them in.
I was
greatly disappointed as the father insisted his boys would never do such a
thing, even though I’d seen it with my own eyes. He called me a liar and told me to go
away. Angry and indignant, I went into
the house and told M.O.M. what had happened.
What I saw wash across her face let me know that she was forming a plan,
and a good one at that. She told me to
be patient.
Darkness
descended slowly on our house like a cloak of some shadowy assassin. M.O.M. called me to her and told me what she
wanted me to do. I enthusiastically
obeyed her every detail. I put on black
pants and my father’s black jacket with a hood, one of his hats and exited the
house silently with all the lights off, through the back door. In the back yard, I carefully searched in the
dark for a landmine fresh from the dog.
I found what I was looking for and using the sandwich bag as a glove, I
picked it up. I stealthily rounded the
side of the house and made my way toward the offending neighbor’s
property.
I approached
the hill that separated our driveways, and lay down flat so the occupants of
the house next door would not see me. I
could hear the theme music from Mission Impossible playing in my head as I
crawled up the hill with my bag of fresh retribution. This situation did not call for a burning bag
on the door step, oh no! M.O.M. had
formulated a far better plan. The
father’s car was parked at the edge of the driveway at the top of the hill, so
it was simple for me to crawl up the hill unseen on the far side of the car and
reach up carefully to smear the contents of my sandwich bag up under the door
handle of the sedan. In the 80’s the
cars had handles that you had to lift up on to open the door from the outside,
and all kinds of nice cracks, grooves, and indentations under the door handle
in which fresh dog crap would nicely stick.
I fought the
urge to gag at the smell and carefully crawled back down the hill and back
around our house. In the back yard, I
buried the sandwich bag under a couple of bags of trash in the bin. Once back in the house M.O.M. quickly ushered
me up the stairs and ordered me to shower and put on my pajamas for bed. I followed her orders and shortly after I was
out of the shower, we took a place in the dark near the window to wait for it.
The windows
were open, and in the darkness we watched and listened, we saw him approach the
car. I bit back the bubbling laughter as
he reached for the door of the car.
There was silence as his hand made contact, and under the glow of the
neighbor’s porch light, we watched as he touched his hand to his nose. There was a slight delay before the shriek
came out of his mouth. M.O.M. ordered me
to bed.
A few
minutes later, our doorbell rang. I
heard muffled voices down stairs as M.O.M. assured him that her kids were all
in bed for the night and no one had left the house. Attack, retreat, and deny all knowledge.
M.O.M.
showed me how important it is, and how funny, to always be prepared for any
situation that might arise.
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