The Prank (Part 2)
"Honey, I'm taking Eli out to dinner tonight and we're going to pick up your consolation gift," I said on Sunday about 3 p.m."Okay," she said.
"And we're going to need to take your car," I said.
"My car?" she said, slightly alarmed.
"Your gift involves your car," I said.
"What are you doing to my car?"
Slightly, meet extremely.
"Mom, it's our BEST IDEA EVER!" Eli 5.8 said.
"It is," I said. "It's something very, very special for your car. A customization. And it was Eli's idea."
Now she has a look of pure terror on her face, but she's backed into a corner. Eli is standing right there, doing a tremendous job of faking pure enthusiasm for his imaginary idea, and Gloria can't possible crush her little boy's dreams.
Heh.
"Should I be worried about this?" she asked.
"Oh, no," I said. "Seriously, this really is our best idea ever." That's a code phrase that signals be afraid. Be very afraid. This is the "best idea ever" from two guys who put their underwear in the laundry by dropping it to the floor, flinging it into the air with their toes, catching it with their hands, and slamming it into the dirty clothes bin.
One of the two may also occcasionally say "Throw it down, big man. Throw it down!" Allegedly.
At 4:30, Gloria hands me her keys. With regret.
We drive off, go eat dinner, and discuss the setup. There are all kinds of ways to improve a prank, and it usually centers around misdirection. Actually seeing the rims was the least important moment--what mattered was getting her to totally believe us before she saw the car.
"There's a body shop about two blocks from here," I said to Eli 5.8. "We'll say that they also do some custom car work, and that we dropped off her car, walked here to eat, then walked back to pick up her car. She's mentioned that body shop before, so I know she'll remember."
"Dad, I can't wait to see her face!" Eli said. "She's afraid we're going to wreck her car!"
"We'll park the car across the bottom of the driveway," I said. "That way, she can only see the right side of the car, so we'll only have to paint two rims. And we'll have her go to the garage, then open the garage door like a curtain raising. As soon as she sees the car, give her a big hug and say 'I love you, Mom!' And don't let go."
"Why wouldn't I let go?" he asked.
"Because as long as you're got your arms around her legs, she can't get any closer to the car. As long as we keep her at the top of the driveway, she'll believe us."
This is what's known as father-son bonding. And pranks teach excellent organizational skills.
After dinner, we went to the parking lot of the swimming pool in our neighborhood. Time to paint.
It didn't take us very long to realize we were going to have to adjust the story on the fly. The paint looked pretty good, even though it was Crayola washable paint, but even at fifteen feet away, it clearly wasn't a uniform, professional job.
It looked more, well, artistic.
"Mom loves funky art stuff," I said. "We'll tell her that you saw a car in a parking lot with custom painted rims. Like an art car. And we asked the guy where he got it done, and he told us about an artist who paints car rims."
That's an entirely plausible story in Austin, by the way. I could probably go to South Austin and find five of those guys in half an hour.
"Will she believe that?" Eli asked.
"She will if you say 'Mommy, I know you love art' before I start telling the story," I said.
"Got it," he said. He's been laughing from the minute we left the house with Gloria's car, and he starts laughing again.
It takes us about half an hour to paint the two rims--one red, one bright yellow. Then we ditch all the supplies and wash our hands, so there's no incriminating evidence.
We drive home--slowly. I have no idea how much paint is going to spatter with the wheels turning and the paint not totally dry yet, so I'm going as slowly as possible.
We call Gloria from two blocks away and she's at the grocery story. So we tell her that when she comes home, she can't go into the garage. We'll hide the car there, then pull it out for "display purposes" when she's inside the house.
Gloria gets home, and she's nervous. Of course she's nervous--she knows us. "Mom, I CAN'T WAIT for you to see your CAR!" Eli 5.8 shouts.
"Neither can I," I said. "It's beautiful!"
Poor Gloria. If this was a Cathy cartoon, she would have flop sweat pouring from every inch of her body.
"So what did you do?" she asked.
"A few weeks ago, we were in the parking lot at Walgreen's," I said.
"And I saw THIS CAR!" Eli said.
"It had custom-painted rims, and they were fantastic," I said. "While we were looking at the car, the guy came out and we asked him where he got them. It turned out that there's a guy at that little body shop on Parmer that does custom rim-painting on the side. Like art cars."
"And I know you love art!" Eli said.
How I wish I had a picture of her expression.
"So," I said, "we got him to custom-paint some rims for your car."
"Yeah!" Eli shouted.
"And it only cost us six hundred dollars, because we traded in your rims," I said.
"You've GOT to see them, Mom," Eli said. "Come on!"
Eli opened the door to the garage. As he was walking out, Gloria looked at me and said hopefully, "This is an April Fool's Day joke, right?"
"Honey, you are going to love them," I said. "They're really beautiful."
"You didn't actually do this," she said weakly, trying to convince herself.
I push the button for the garage door opener. Gloria is at least twenty feet away from her car, and when the garage door goes up to the point where she can take a look, Eli throws his arms around her legs and hugs her.
That's my boy.
"What do you think?" I asked.
"This is an April Fool's Day joke," she said. "I know it is." She was using the same tone a bomb specialist uses when forced to guess between two wires to cut. I know it's the red wire.
"The rims on the other side are painted blue and green," I said. "Go take a look." Gloria starts walking down the driveway, Eli skipping behind her, and when she peers around the other side--and sees no paint on the other two rims--Eli yells "APRIL FOOLS!"
"I knew it all the time," she said. She lies.
Of course I got a picture:
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