Anona-mom: Joke's on you

Sunday night Ellen - dear wonderful, you-would-be-so-lucky-to-know-her Ellen - came over to discuss carpooling. After hammering out the details (which are that I get way too much time off of driving, and I am not in charge of mornings so I can stay in my jams till noon if I need to...), we got down to the serious business of chatting. Ellen's brain works a lot like mine, that is, similar to a caffeinated hamster with ADD; jumping from topic to topic, and laughing and crying a lot in between (do hamsters cry? I don't know).

Well, somehow between our tears about testimonies and our laughter over fake dog poop, we got to talking about practical jokes. We took turns sharing escapades of our younger days, and lamenting that no body really knows how to joke around anymore. At one point, Ellen said something about being too old for practical jokes now.

I asked, "Is it possible to be too old for practical jokes?!" I think not!

After she left, naturally I felt the need to dust off my whoopie cushion, get out my snake-in-a-can and come up with something we could do to Ellen. Strike while the iron is hot, I always say (actually, I have never said that before).

Taking a page from the tales of the evening, Guy and I pulled out one of our best practical jokes from our early married days. We began photocopying our children's faces (eyes shut, of course). Back in the day we didn't have a copier on our printer. No, back then we had to dig through the sofa to find change, and then stand guard for each other while we used the copier at the local all-night 7-Eleven. Good times, good times.

Well, this time we had the convenience of a copier, but the inconvenience of 5 children to work into the act. One by one we scanned the kids mugs, (all but the baby... we scanned his cute diapered booty), making an extra set of copies to leave at Dave and Steph's house, then climbed into the mini-van at 11 o'clock at night.

Wouldn't you know it, Dave and Steph's house was lit up like a roman candle, and in true Sacramento style, the windows were all open to cool off the house. The same scenario was playing out at Ellen's house. But being the dare devils we are, we went for it (well, the rest of the family went for it, I sat in the van with the baby, him sucking on my finger (pinkie nursing, as Tessa calls it)...) to keep him calm.
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At Ellen's, the kids all hid along the fence as Guy crawled around on the grass, stabbing plastic forks into the ground with our silly, photocopied faces taped to them. I could see - but not hear - from inside the van as the kids began fighting in whispers and wild, angry hand gestures, trying to make one another be quiet or move one way or another. Guy came over and I could see him shaking his finger at them and pointing to the van. Inside the van the baby began to fuss, and I frantically tried to soothe him. What were we thinking taking kids out at 11PM to fork a lawn?

At one point, Ellen actually reached her hand through the blinds to shut a window, and Guy flopped down on his belly, not 10 feet away from her. Finally finished, we headed back to Dave and Steph's, only to find the blinds and windows open and a Barmitzvah or something going on in the front room. Guy dropped Tessa, the baby and I off at home and tried again with the boys at 1AM, but apparently some people are actually nocturnal. They gave up and came home.

The guys intended to go back at 4 am, but when the alarm went off, Guy decided that some things are way more important that a good prank, sleep being chief among them. The next night the kids all took off with daddy again, a photocopy in each hand, and this time met with success. They had just enough time to smack the smashed face prints on the window and run for the van when the blinds went up.