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I
have a handful of friends who feel it is their life's work to try to
scare people. You know the type, the ones who jump out from behind
furniture, plan elaborate pranks or who, when the lights go out, start
making ghost sounds while reaching out and grabbing for you. Once some
people find out they can't scare you, it makes them want to try even
more.
One such friend is Randy. God love him, he has tried to
rattle me for years but something just never goes right for him.
Usually his pranks end up with me asking if he is all right, or I
inevitably have to say to him, "Ooh! That looks like
that hurt!"
Even as a child Randy was a prankster. On April Fool's Day while
walking home with his buddies after picking raspberries, Randy decided
it would be really funny to scare any passing motorists by smearing
raspberry juice all over his face and shirt, simulating some sort of
bloody, vicious attack. There were no takers except for an old man who
honked and yelled out the window, "Get out of the road, you crazy
kid!"
Author's Note: April Fool's Day is the
last day of the year you should pull a prank. I don't know, I'm not a
genius, but part of getting someone is using the element of surprise.
The years that followed weren't exactly successful, either. I give you exhibits A-C
A. During a Halloween party he tried to freak me out by jumping out
from behind the corner at me but the only thing he managed to scare up
were light but still painful burns when a plate of scalding hot
jalapeρo poppers flew into the air and landed on him.
B. While house sitting for a friend I
received a call from Randy asking me if I had heard about the mentally
unstable ex-con who had just escaped from prison and was last seen...wait for it...in the neighborhood in which I was house sitting.
C. One year he scraped the bottom of the barrel by announcing that his
parents had been murdered in their home by a crazed escaped mental
patient. I still mess with him about this, threatening to tell his parents who are alive, well, and living in Vermont.
Authors
Note: This is one of Randy's problems. Every killer in his pranks is
"mentally unstable" or "a crazed maniac". Or they have just escaped
from either prison or an insane asylum. He overdevelops his characters.
I get why he does it though, I mean are you going to freak out knowing
that Jerry, the passive aggressive ex-con, is roaming the streets or
that Bill, the psychiatric patient with abandonment issues, just got
let out of the hospital? It just doesn't pack the same wallop.
Sometimes his pranks have come with an emotional cost to him. One night
at a party he decided it would be hysterical to hide in the hall closet
so when I would go in to retrieve coats he would leap out and scare me.
It could have been a workable plan if he had factored in 1. The closet
door sticks from the inside and 2. He is claustrophobic. When I finally
went into the closet to get the last of the coats I found Randy sitting
on the floor sweating and yelling at me..."Didn't anyone hear me? I thought I was going to die in there!" Poor guy.
His attempts to scare have also caused him relationship problems. It
doesn't help that his girlfriends always seem to be the type who are
easily upset. When you mix a guy dramatically staggering out of a room
holding his chest, simulating a heart attack with a girl who cried when
MELROSE PLACE was taken off the air, it isn't going to be pretty.
Another time he attempted to jump out from behind the bathroom door and
his girlfriend popped him in the face with her curling iron. The sad
part is he had tried this before with yet another girl
and he got a face full of body splash. You'd think that jumping out
from behind a bathroom door and getting Jean Nate splashed in your face
would serve as some kind of deterrent.
Author's
Note: trying to scare your girlfriend is great, as long as it is done
in a cute, playful way. Putting her in survival mode and making her
feel as if she is about to be assaulted is not going to turn out well
for you or for your relationship.
Why don't I just let him scare me? Why don't I act like he has finally done it? Because I like him trying and I think he likes trying. If after all this time he actually sent me into a fit of terror, I don't think he would know what to do with himself.
Until next time.....
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