April 1st
began with an envelope pushed under my front door. It read: Dear Missus Balerie, sorry very much indeed
to be sorry and bring you bad news, but your rent has must been much increased
by twenty dollars. All person living in this building must pay for new workings
on parking lot. It was signed by Horatio Westminster, someone I’d never
heard of, and I doubted a measly twenty bucks would go very far toward improving
the parking lot, which had space for only six cars.
I dismissed the letter
and put my breakfast bowl in the sink for washing later because my dishwasher
had not been operational for months. How about it, Mr. Horatio Made-up-name
Westminster? Wanna take up a collection for that? Or was this my first April
Fools’ prank?
When I returned to the
kitchen, I saw a flashing light on my phone. Two calls I had missed while it
was charging overnight. First one was from the Department of Justice. Wait a
minute, Department of what? It
advised me there was a warrant out for my arrest due to unpaid taxes, and I
could expect a visit from the local sheriff (I hoped he could find a parking
space).
Next call was from the Downers Grove library advising me that the book How to Train Your Cat to Do Almost Anything was overdue, and an undisclosed amount was owed. Ha! Not only had I not stepped foot in the Downers Grove library for more than a decade, I’d never owned a cat, and certainly had no interest in training one.
Okay, so three pranks, and
I hadn’t even left the house yet.
The morning was uneventful
since my client Mrs. Karlsson, who looked as though she hailed from Sweden but
always wore a colorful sari and had a red dot on her forehead, did not show for
our ten thirty appointment. Okay, so that could be real. I used the time to
catch up on some important work, like balancing my checkbook. Next, I planned
to make my weekly call to my mother. But she got to me first.
“Valerie, this is your
mother, Jean.” (So glad she identified
herself, because I was concerned she might be one of my other mothers, Diane
Sawyer or Oprah Winfrey.)
“How ya doing, Mom?”
“Well, since you ask,
I’ve played a huge prank on William Stuckey.” (That would be her husband, whose
full name she always uses, lest we confuse him with some other William, like William
Devane or William the Conqueror.)
“What did you do?” I
asked, still calculating my checkbook balance. How could it be so low?
“Well, I took a pair of
his socks—you know, the ones he plays golf in—and cut the toes off.”
“Good one, Mom,” I said, surprised.
For most people, that would probably be considered lame, but for my mother, it
was an SNL skit. She doesn’t do humor
well—or ever. “Bet he’ll get a good laugh.”
“That’s not all. I
painted his golf balls with clear glue.”
“Okaaay.” I stopped
calculating, not quite sure what to say next. Had my mother turned into Soupy Sales?
But I figured there was more.
“There’s more,” she confirmed.
Did I want to hear it? Had she replaced his golf clubs with rubber hoses?
“I called the manager of
the bar at the club and asked him to reject William Stuckey’s credit card when
he tries to buy drinks.”
“Okay, Mom. Enough. Call
the manager and cancel that. They probably don’t even take credit cards—”
“They do. I’ve met him
there for drinks before. It’s gonna be a hoot.”
Hoot?
When did she start saying hoot? Did she even know what it meant? “Look, Mom,
I gotta go. But have fun and don’t try anything else.”
“Okay, dear. But watch
out—you never know who’ll try to play a prank on you today.”
Okay, this was getting
weird. Perhaps I was talking to one of my other
other mothers—Whoopi Goldberg, perhaps, or Lucille Ball. “By the way,” I said.
“I’ve had several pranks, as you call them, already, and I’m way ahead of
everyone.”
When
I got home, there was a short, dark man standing at my front door. I’d never seen
him before. “You are Mrs. Balerie?” he asked anxiously.
“Yes,
I am; well, it’s Valerie, with a V—”
“That’s
what I said. Balerie. I am Horatio Westminster, and I am hoping you got my
note about—”
“Mr.
Westminster . . . Horatio . . . whoever
you are . . . have the owner of the building send me an
official letter—”
“I
am the owner, and I thought my note was being of the official, but if you would
be liking to prefer—”
“Forget
it,” I said, taking out my door key. “You’ll get an extra twenty when I pay my
rent.” I rushed inside, just as my phone rang. “Ms. Pankowski? I left you a
voice mail earlier. This is Phyllis Hoppenstaff from the library; I’m calling
about the book How to Train your Cat—”
“Let me stop you right there, Phyllis. I have never taken a book from your library—”
“It
seems the book was taken out ten years ago by an Emily Pankowski. And because you
signed for her, and the book was never returned, the overdue fees are—”
“Yes,
that’s my daughter. Fine, whatever, I’ll send you a check. You know, I thought
your call was an April Fools’ joke—”
“I
can assure you, we do not play jokes at the library. We take this sort of thing
very seriously—”
“Apparently.
How much do I owe you?”
“Seven
dollars and twenty-eight cents. If you want to appeal—”
“I’ll
send you a check. Good-bye.”
Would
this day never end? Since I was apparently immune to April Fools’ pranks, there
was nothing left for me to do but pour myself a glass of wine and wait for the
sheriff to show up and arrest me.
