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Let me say this about that.

Whatever happened to the ‘practical joke’?  A good, ‘ol fashion knee-slapper that usually resulted in stained pants, gum in hair, or water damage.  Pre “politically correct” mania, guys were guys and showed manly affection by trying to do near-lethal damage to his buddy’s body or property.  Let me give you a couple of examples.

In the mid 60′s, I was working an an engineering intern at a power company in a small town in Tennessee, just a couple of miles north of the Georgia border.  A buddy was getting married and asked me and a couple of other guys to be groomsmen. 

The groom’s dad had bought him a new Corvette as a wedding present.  The groom was terrified that the guys would…    paint the traditional honeymoon messages on his new ‘Vette with shoe polish and lipstick so he asked if he could drive my old ’52 Ford on his honeymoon to Daytona. 

As soon as the wedding was over, the happy couple loaded up into my old rattle-trap and drove south.  The other groomsmen and I walked to the nearest phone booth where I called the Georgia State Patrol and reported my car stolen.  The State Troopers pulled them over only 10 miles into Georgia, and, since he could not produce a valid vehicle registration, arrested him for transporting stolen property across state lines.  Since the car was “stolen” it was empounded, which left his bride with no way to find a place for the night – soooo, she spent the night in jail as well, in the waiting room.

It all got sorted out the next morning, but to say he was pissed would marginalize the term “understatement”.  I denied doing it, of course, and the other groomsmen were true to their word and never ratted me out.

Some years later, a few other engineers and I were working on a major problem at a large manufacturing plant.  The work was tough and the hours long, so for lunch we usually just hopped in the car and grabbed a burger at the drive thru of a local McDonalds.  Every day there was that same dorky little guy at the pick-up window who kept forgetting part of our order – a bag of fries, catsup, a drink, something.  After a few weeks of this, we decided to make him our next victim.

One of the guys on our team had access to the company’s print shop where they printed product flyers, company pamplets, and such.  McDonalds had just initiated their wildly successful “Happy Meals” promotion, so we created a “Happy Meal” ad of our own, complete with the McDonalds golden arch logo and glossy photo of a “Happy Meal” box.  We printed our custom “Happy Meal” ad on a 8 1/2 by 11 piece of glossy display material and stashed it in my car.

It took nearly a week to set up this gag, as it required our being in the drive thru line, just ahead of a car full of girls.  Finally, there we were, pulling up to Mr. Dorky’s drive thru delivery window with a car load of teenage girls in the car immediately behind us.  While Dorky got our order, I reached out my car window and taped our custom “Happy Meal” ad to the wall just beneath his window.  We took our food and drove away as the girls behind us pulled up to the window and spotted our official looking ad:

“Welcome to McDonalds!  Show us your tits and receive a free Happy Meal!   A $4.99 value!”

And, that’s all I have to say about that.

Shambo