In the early 80's, I worked in a high traffic food and wine shop located on the Grand Concourse of Union Station in downtown Chicago. We sold half-pints of liquor and single cans of beer, and grab-and-go snack kebobs made out of Colby cheese and summer sausage on a stick, to commuters in a hurry to catch their trains. We sold expensive bottles of wine, and gift baskets of food items, to travelers killing time before continuing on their adventures.
My boss, and store owner, Glenn, was a straight-laced, ex-military, type of guy. But he had three kids of his own, all around my age, so he was cool, and let me get away with all kinds of stuff because I was good with the register, and good with the customers.
One year I super-glued a quarter to the floor right in front of his register. I thought that as soon as he saw it, he'd make me take it off. He came in at 8:47, like usual, saw the quarter, and bent over to pick it up. He tugged at it for a minute, stood up, looked at me, then set his belongings behind the counter and went about his business.
All day long I got to watch him go berserk every time someone tried to pick it up. Some people caught on right away and laughed along, some people really worked at getting those damn two-bits off the floor, and one middle-aged businessman in a gray suit almost flipped himself head over heels when he casually swiped at it as he passed.
I came in the next morning and popped the quarter off the floor with a hammer and chisel. I opened the store and a little later Glenn came in right on time. We talked about routine store matters for a while and I started my chores. No mention was made of the previous day, but every year after that he made sure there was a quarter laying on the floor in front of his register.
I admit, this one I stole from M*A*S*H, but I think it was the most personally satisfying gag I ever pulled. All day long I walked around with a rolled up magazine in my back pocket. I'd go up to one of my co-workers or customers and say, "Hold still." Then I'd take out the magazine and give them a good thump on the chest.
They'd look down and say something like, "Did you get it?"
And I'd say, "Get what?"
The store manager (I have a thing for authority figures) was standing with a Corporate VP in the middle of a group of department heads and employees. Our manager, Joe, was a nice enough fellow for a three-hundred-and-fifty pound Italian goombah, but everyone tread a little lightly around him.
I walked directly up to him, said, "Don't move," reached behind me and whipped out the rolled-up magazine, and whapped him right on his left pectoral. He looked down and stammered, "Wh-What?"
"Nothing," I said.
You could feel the air-intake as everyone held their breath in stunned silence. Then all of a sudden, Joe started laughing to beat the band. Everyone else started laughing with the breaking of the tension.
It's not every employee who gets to whap their boss and get away with it.
Back to the wife. At one point in our lives, we were living with our two sons in an apartment building on Crab Apple Court. The fact that a year after we moved in, the new owner cut down the last beautiful, flowering, crabapple tree on the block and put in decorative stone, does not concern this story. The parking lot was behind the building, and almost all of the tenants used the rear door.
After school, our boys, who were about nine and eleven years old at the time, and I made up two signs, one of which said:
DOOR BROKEN
PLEASE USE FRONT DOOR
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION
THE MANAGEMENT
We tacked this notice to the back door.
The other sign said:
DOOR BROKEN
PLEASE USE BACK DOOR
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION
THE MANAGEMENT
This notice we tacked to the front door.
All afternoon we watched out the boys' bedroom window for our neighbors to come home from work. Some read the sign, ignored it, and went in the back door anyway. Others walked around front, read the sign on that door, and then went in. But we knew, of course, that the best was yet to come.
The minutes couldn't have moved any slower as we waited for mom to get home. We saw her pull in, gather her bags, and approach the door. We were all hunched down, giggling and elbowing each other, me being the worst of the lot. She read the sign and started walking around the side of the building, and the three of us raced into the front room. She came up to the front door, saw the sign, and then moved out to the sidewalk and looked up at our balcony. We scurried into the shadows farther back in the room, but we could follow her going back to the parking lot.
She stood beside the car looking up at the boys' window, and we saw her take out her cell phone. A moment later the house phone started ringing. I told the boys to shush up and said, "Hello?"
My wife said, "How do they expect me to get in the building?"
"I don't know," I said. "I think they're putting people up at the Holiday Inn for the night."
She started to say, "What?" but the boys couldn't hold it in anymore, and my wife said, "YOU GUYS!"
There's not much room to hide in a two bedroom apartment, but such as there was, we availed ourselves of. My wife banged open the door, dumped her stuff on the dining table and called out, "You're a bunch of funny guys, aren't ya!?"
After a round of hugs and kisses, all was forgiven.
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