Practical Joke #2

As I mentioned in "Practical Joke #(Who Knows)”, we were heavily into playing little pranks on each other at the West Valley Free Wheeler.  I worked with a lady named Sylvia, and for the life of me I can’t remember the joke she played on me, but I do remember telling her that I was going to get revenge on her, that I would do it when she least expected it and that it would happen when I wasn’t even there.  I had no plan at the time, but I was a cocky 25 year old and over-confident in my own abilities.  Except this time I did it.

Sylvia worked during the days, and was usually the one that opened the store.  The driver I closed with that night and I brainstormed, came up with a plan and stayed up until the early morning hours setting things up for the morning.

We made a net out of string to hold a water balloon, attached it to the ceiling above the front door and placed a pin in the wall right below it.  Then we got a water balloon, put it in the net, hooked a string to hold it up and ran the string down the side of the door and across the bottom of the door. 

The idea was that Sylvia would come in, walk through the door, pulling the string out of the wall down below.  This would release the water balloon, which would fall onto the pin, pop and the water would fall right on her.  It worked perfect.  Exactly as planned.

Although she got me back even before I knew how well my plan had worked.  I came into the store that evening to work and the first thing Tonya, another employee, told me was that the water balloon had worked perfectly, except that Mike, one of the owners, had come by before the store opened to get some paperwork.  Instinctively I knew that couldn’t be true, wouldn’t because Mike hardly ever came out to the West Valley store, but that initial gut wrenching feeling of doom, despite only lasting seconds, was enough to give the two women a good laugh.