My Smart Mouth: Practical Jokes

Anyone who’s grown up in a small town knows that entertainment is what you make of it.

A quick perusal of the grass-roots histories of villages such as ours will reveal that most such communities boast an extensive history of shenanigans, pranks and practical jokes – many employing an astounding amount of creative genius and some ending in hilarity, others in fist-fight, triage or jail time - reaching back to the days of the pioneers and prospector.

Before you or I were born, when the children rode to school on horseback, uphill both ways in sub-zero temperatures, and the fiddler at the Community Hall dance wore a loaded pistol on his hip, Great Grandpa didn’t just sit around on a cold winter’s eve practicing his aim at the spittoon. As wholesome as those hard-working pioneer stock might seem in sepia-tinted retrospect, the stern Victorian mien oftentimes disguised a sort of rugged ingenuity that helped them carve a life out of the wilderness and was also put to good use in the time-honored tradition of humiliating and tormenting one’s friends and family for base personal amusement.

“Back in the day there was nothing to do around here except come up with ways to mess with each other,” my dad, a local since 1972, recently explained.

After all, when the winters are long, the pay-checks short and the cell service spotty, what’s a body to do for entertainment? Although times are changing, if you know where to look there are still old-timers amongst us who could teach us all a thing or two about how to have a bit of good, clean(ish) fun, the old-fashioned way.

For example, I know of an incident last summer in which a lifelong Lincoln resident (an octogenarian who shall remain anonymous, but whose name rhymes with Schmeddy Schmantier) executed a masterfully orchestrated plot to terrorize our beloved local mail carrier, for no purpose other than his own nefarious enjoyment.

It’s true! Upon noticing that a wild Canadian goose had met its demise via power line and plummeted to its final resting place in his yard, this elder gentleman, father, grandfather and fixture in the community, was moved (by what demons we can only guess) to stuff the unfortunate fowl into his mail box. A tight fit to be sure, there the cooked goose rested, awaiting release by the aforementioned unsuspecting federal employee.

When said blameless public servant opened our friend’s mailbox, out sprang the goose to meet him, flopping like an unexpectedly macabre jack-in-the-box and no doubt eliciting any number of satisfying responses, had the jokester been around to witness the culmination of his prank.

So refined was the evolved mischievousness of said rogue, however, that he need not bear witness to the fruition of his prank to derive wicked pleasure. In the manner of Coyote before him, it was enough to know his mischief was out there in the world, creating its own little ripples of havoc.

It was just that sort of ingenuity and pioneering spirit that carved this little town out of the wilderness, my friends, and that sort of genius that needs to be immortalized. I know there are dozens of other such stories – the kind, told by great-uncles around kitchen tables, that we all heard as kids listening at the stairwell after bedtime – floating around, just waiting to be unearthed and acknowledged. Do not let that sort of comedic heroism go unsung.

E-mail your best practical joke stories to [email protected] to be featured for the edification of all. I double-dog-dare you. Because winter is long, y’all.

(The BVD is not responsible for any damage to person, property, livestock or federal employees as a result of this column.)