A Good Idea at the Time

This article is rated PG! Not for the usual reasons— just keep it away from easily influenced minors in case they get any notions of duplicating the stupidity!

 

A few weeks ago we met with friends and at one point I mentioned some of the things I turned to as entertainment in the slow days of a teenage summer.  The focus was always the “practical joke”, which to a teenager is an excuse for almost anything, under a mistaken belief that adults will forgive almost anything if we excuse it by saying, “It was a joke!”   Now an adult, and a homeowner, I can see that it would be quite a leap for the victims of some of our pranks to see it in that light.  “It seemed like a good idea at the time!” remains our only poor excuse.

 

As a youth I once read a book called The Real Diary of a Real Boy, and although now I question whether it was a real diary or of a real boy, the antics in that book were a measure to me of what was “normal”, and as long as I fell short of that boy, I felt I was moving in an acceptable realm.

 

My mother worked long hours when we were growing up, and no doubt was too tired much of the time to keep a constant watch on me and what my friends and I did with our leisure time.  If I turned up home at some time, there were few questions as to what shenanigans the group of us had been into for the evening.

 

I mentioned to our friends that one summer a group of us discovered that we could climb onto roofs of businesses on the main street of Summerside, then a one-street business district, and, due to the closeness of the stores, go from one to the other quite easily.  We would occasionally lie at the front roof edge above the signs and watch vehicles go past below on Water Street, ducking back for the occasional police car.  I suppose there was little danger, but that was a word that failed to make our vocabulary, more from the stupidity factor than bravery.  Some of the stores had a scant one-foot of space between them, and a slip off the building to down between likely would have resulted in major construction surgery to get anyone out, if they bothered.

 

Escapades like this were nothing.  Likewise things like putting soap and dye in the town fountain, or replacing flags in the parks with our own versions were of little judicial interest.  Where it got to the point of danger of prosecution was when we took to tying various parts of houses to cars in driveways.  I can recall tricks like tying rain gutter downpipes to the nearby cars, or wooden steps to cars, so that when the vehicle left the house, parts would accompany it.  Hilariously funny if you were not the homeowner.

 

There was an airman stationed at the Summerside base who lived near Kenny’s grandparents, and who was always on our case for something— can’t figure why.  I recall that one pleasant evening we fired off a small cannon, loaded I believe with powder we carefully removed from shotgun shells, and this resulted in quite a bang, enough to make the neighbourhood wonder if WW3 had broken out.  The airman chose this time to stick his face over the fence and make loud remarks concerning the validity of our parentage, and threatened us soundly.  He claimed that his baby had jumped a foot in the air with the cannon blast, a feat we looked proudly at as at least contributing to his physical development.

 

A few nights later, knowing he left for the base at about 11 p.m., we found his car parked beside the curb, and chained its rear axle to the nearby power post, using two padlocks.  We didn’t have much chain, fortunately, so he only traveled a foot before fetching up quite soundly, and when he got out and examined the problem, from the bushes we could hear new creative developments in the art of putting together four-letter words.

 

Never did we think that had police tracked these “practical jokes” to us, we likely would have been in court, where we would have had a difficult time getting the judge to laugh hilariously at our clever ideas.

 

What was likely our final comedic performance almost did just that, and probably resulted in traces of sense coming to us as visions of handcuffs and leg-irons.  That final joke was The Great Plunger Caper.

 

Three of us had been riding our bikes in the Sherbrooke area, likely coming from the beach where we often cooked mussels over an open fire in a pot we kept hidden behind a bush.  At the corner of Central Street there was an Esso station, and we stopped off to use the washroom.

 

We found the ceiling to be about ten feet high, and in the corner of the washroom was a plunger.  I recall the germ of the idea was from me, although I lacked the height to carry it out (a loophole if it ever got to court?).  “Wouldn’t it be funny,” I said, “If we stuck the plunger on the ceiling above the toilet, so the next fellow who is sitting there looks up and sees it?”  One of the taller boys, Kenny, stood on the toilet and stuck the plunger firmly on the ceiling like a suction cup.  Away we pedaled, chuckling to ourselves.  Hilarious again!

 

We had gotten about a mile up the hill toward the town when a red Esso truck came from behind us and pulled in ahead with a screech of brakes.  The driver got out, his face matching the truck for shade, and bellowed, “Which one of you ____  smashed the toilet?”

 

Stammering and stuttering, we explained what we had done.  Surprisingly, there wasn’t a change to laughter as he appreciated the humor of the situation.  Our joke should have been preceded by a lengthy experiment on the sticking power of plungers on a ceiling, because it apparently only stayed there for two minutes, then dropped straight down and through the bowl of the toilet, dumping the water onto the floor.  The next patron, rather than being greeted by the amazing plunger on the ceiling trick, was greeted by a flood of water, and a plunger sticking through a fist-sized hole in the toilet bowl, looking quite obviously like someone had driven it there.

 

The garage owner left, after having taken our names and other information, and we glumly pedaled home, expecting to be measured shortly for matching striped suits.  On the way we held the usual childish finger-pointing: “You’re the one who stuck it there!”  “It was your idea!”  The third fellow had a pretty good story, being only an accomplice, and could likely come up with an, “I had already left when they did it!” alibi if pressed.

 

The dust finally settled a week later.  My uncle talked to the Esso dealer, whom he knew, more to ascertain the case developments, and discovered that on investigation the owner had indeed found an imprint of the plunger on the ceiling, so his initial belief that we had rammed it through the toilet was softened.  His desire for retribution or restitution was mollified by talking to the mother of Kenny, also a single parent, and realizing that neither family could easily come up with the cost of a replacement— the blood out of a turnip analogy.  My mother only heard about it second-hand, from the other mother, and my punishment was mainly the knowledge that I almost got us into a lot of financial trouble that we didn’t need.

 

There comes a time of awakening, and looking back I can see The Great Plunger Caper was it, at least for me.  I’ve lost track of Kenny through the years, and don’t know if he had the sense to learn from that experience as well.  He likely doesn’t even remember it, and if he does, I’m sure his version has him concocting the plot and me sticking it poorly on the ceiling.

 

Time has a way of blurring the facts, which is why I hope there is a statute of limitations on most of my youth.

 

 

 

3 thoughts on “A Good Idea at the Time

  1. It’s not my usual habit to respond to blogs, no doubt a result of having been intellectually repressed by an opinionated older brother when I was a child. Oh, did I mention I am Francis’ younger brother? Hence my reluctance to voice my own opinions and, in general, my largely unwarranted low self-esteem.

    However, my customary reticence notwithstanding, I find it necessary to comment on The Great Plunger Caper, which has survived in my memory slightly less blurred by time than in the blogger’s recital. Yes, I was the innocent third party, dragged along by my criminal older brother and his evil pal Kenny. I was four years younger than both of them (and I still am!), and I recall the details much more clearly than Francis does. (No doubt that’s a result of my being far less along the senility path than he is.

    The conversation in the gas station bathroom was exactly as follows
    Francis: What can we bust in here?
    Kenny: Nothing here but a toilet and a sink.
    Mike: I don’t think we should . .
    Francis & Kenny: Shut up!
    Kenny: Wouldn’t it be neat if we broke the toilet and spread water all over the floor
    Francis: Yeah, cool!
    Mike: Wait, now . .
    Francis & Kenny: Shut up!
    Francis: Let’s bust a hole in it with the plunger!
    Mike: I’m gettin’ out of here!
    Francis: Leave this room and I’ll break your legs!
    Kenny: (Smashing a hole in the toilet)There, now what?
    Francis: Stick the plunger on the ceiling, then pull it down and make it look like a prank gone wrong!
    Kenny: Okay! Boy, I wish I was smart like you!
    Francis: That’ll never happen!
    Mike: I’m leaving now.
    Francis: We all are. Tell and you’re dead!
    A few minutes later, the red Esso truck pulls up beside Francis and me.
    Irate Esso Man: Which one of you guys busted the toilet?
    Francis: (Pointing up ahead to Kenny)That guy up there. I tried to stop him!

    As Francis stated, there were no real repercussions, except it’s my belief that our uncle, who was a bit of a surrogate father to us, may have paid to replace the toilet. He always seemed to have a great deal of sympathy for his sister’s uncontrollable youngsters.
    It was obviously an awakening for Francis, as he says, as he immediately became boring and self-righteous, and I had to hide my own later activity from him or suffer the consequences. For me it was an awakening of another sort, since it revealed to my young soul that one could become involved in incredibly stupid and harmful behaviour with no real consequences. If nothing else, my older brother taught me that! Of course, later in life, I did have a few restless nights wondering how he was making out in that guidance counselling thing he had going . . .

    =============
    [FWP: I was thinking the Third Man might have been you— couldn’t recall if it was, or Kenny’s brother.
    My brother has a gift for dialogue, but truth was never his strength— all lies, I tell you!]

  2. Thanks for the laugh. I enjoyed your description of your antics. You always claimed you had a shady past as a youth. Your poor mother!

    I keep telling you that you should write a book. Now that I’ve read your brother’s reply – you could team up and each write his own version of boyhood antics.

    W

  3. Well that was a good laugh!

    Seeing both sides of the story now makes me wonder which really happened. Who had the more credible alibi? Anyway, I agree with the book idea. I’d buy it!

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