Anything For a Laugh

I’ve always been a prankster and a lover of a joke. I love to see the puzzled look on an unsuspecting bloke, when he looks around and lifts his hat - totally confused. Some take a joke for what it is and some are not amused. So you’ve got to pick your targets and the better one’s by far, re those who are mild mannered and don’t use their ‘dooks’ to spar, but every prankster knows their minds have got to stay on track, ‘cause there is a word that he fears most - that word being payback! As a young bloke in me teens I joined a mob of minion skites, in our little country town who patrolled the street at nights, but we never got upon the grog and drugs were never taken, and just as well ‘cause many nights, we had to run to ‘save our bacon.’ You see these were the days when the pub was closed at six o’clock, and we would sneak up to the door at ten and give a hefty knock, then we’d run like buggery and hide in the grass or drains, and hear the threats from someone wild with grog still in their veins. Now and then we’d tie some fishing line onto a purse to give some grief, and when some bugger picked it up we’d give the line a mighty reef. Of course when New Years Eve came around, we whitewashed half the town, and putting hessian bags across a chimney did win us some renown. But that’s all bloody kids stuff that’s no longer handed down, so as we grew older but not up, for we still acted like a clown, by shoving spuds right up the car exhausts; blowing mufflers to bits, or getting hold of VR detonators and go on a letterboxes blitz. Of course the coppers don’t like older kids involved in witty scandals, they preferred to lock us up and class the lot of us as vandals, but it weren’t coppers in the end, who swept with conforming brooms, it was the fact that some met girls who demanded they want grooms. But it gave all a newfound vigour as each fell off the ‘singles’ perch; I must admit I was the ringleader, who organized right from the church, the distractions for the twitters of the guests who are invited, where once again us pranksters lurk and jokes once more ignited. The poor old groom would cop the lot and always find out late, there’s notes and pleads where he can’t see about his looming fate, and yes the wedding breakfast was a smorgasbord for pranks, with telegrams and speeches from scarlet ladies saying thanks. Of course the car was decorated with an advertising whack. There’s shaving cream and toilet rolls or tin cans at the back. There’s onions on the manifold; confetti in their cases strewn, to give the newlyweds their start upon their honeymoon. But the honeymooners coming home is the pranksters sheer delight, we had all this time to systematize an elaborate mongrel plight, to think of what we got up to that was mean and not real nice, and one that had us rollicking involved three numbered mice. These numbered mice, one two and four, were let out running free, inside the home, and weeks were spent, to seek out number three, and every label in the pantry was removed from every tin, so instead of soup, it could be fruit, so the prank would soon wear thin. But now the time of reckoning has finally fallen in me lap, and now all me mates who married are about to set their trap. The date is set, the time has come, and I’m near a nervous wreck, not because I’m getting married but from what I didn’t check. Inside the church there was no hitch; not one fool played a prank, there were no streakers, no smoke bombs, nothing daft or rank. The telegrams read out were ‘kosher’; the speeches true and straight. There was not one prank, not one fool, but there’s still time for fate. So my expectation is the car will look more like a Moomba float, with a message for our hotel, for what honeymoons promote, but there’s no bells and whistles, no paper, tins or shaving cream; my wedding went too perfect, so what did the pranksters scheme? I led my bride into the room, once I had switched the light. I checked each room suspiciously, and everything seemed right. I even checked between the sheets, for cornflakes in the bed, but caste aside some magazines that the hotel probably spread. With morning breaking through the curtains there’s a feeling we must eat, and so I picked up the phone and rang for service in our suite. I said I’d like to order breakfast … and for two would just be great, then I heard a voice beneath the bed - “Can you make that for eight?”