Celebrating 80 and I've Been Punked!
We celebrated my mother's 80th birthday yesterday at Jax Cafe' in northeast Minneapolis. It was a lot of fun to get so many 
of us together to mark the occasion. Mom isn't comfortable being the center of attention but she handled it well. Here's a video I put together from the brunch and some photos I uploaded to my Flickr account.
If you made it to the end of the video link above you would've seen all of us siblings together with our mom. This would've been us from a much earlier time, circa 1970-71.
In my last blog post, I talked about some unknown person who didn't like my Obama sign. Both Saturday and Sunday mornings I went out to get the paper and found that my Obama sign had been covered with a black plastic bag.
I thought that maybe it was my neighbors across the street, Mark and Becky, playing a joke on me but I couldn't be sure.
Last night I came home from the late shift at work and as I got out of my truck I noticed two McCain/Palin yard signs in the back of Tammy's car. Hmmm. I had no idea what she was doing with them. Was she being unfaithful to me? I had no idea that she was actually harboring affection for that ticket.
Everybody was asleep when I got in the door. I poured myself a glass of Merlot, watched the Amazing Race then went to bed after what had been a long day.
I got up this morning and went straight for the shower. Tammy was awake when I got out and I quizzed her about the signs in her car. She was trying to hold back a smile as I pressed her to fill me in as to what was going on. She said that I'd stumbled on to their plan and now the gig was up. I still didn't know what she was talking about.
She went on to say that She and Bryan were the ones who'd been covering our Obama sign with black plastic. She said they laughed so hard when I went out there the first morning
and found the covered sign. It got even funnier as I crouched down and took a photo of the disgraced sign and then came in and wrote on Facebook about it. I had no clue I was being had. I'd come in in the morning and talk about our Obama sign while they fought back a strong urge to laugh.
So, the plan this morning was to place one McCain/Palin sign among the two signs I have out there. The real joke would be that they would replace the Obama sign with a McCain sign covered with black plastic. I'd remove the plastic thinking my Obama sign would be there only to find another McCain sign. Funny—and clever.
But somebody forgot to cover the signs in the back of her car and I saw them.
I said to Tammy that I should turn the joke on Bryan and tell him that I confronted my neighbor about covering my signs. I could tell him that we almost got in a fight about it just to see Bryan's reaction. She said that the last time we pulled a joke on somebody the cops got involved so maybe I shouldn't. She was right. Sometimes we get carried away with our quirky humor.
So I don't leave anybody hanging as to what we did that got the police involved in our joke I'll give a brief explanation.
It was April 1st, 2000. Tammy and I had been married less than a year and we'd had little contact with Jonie and Rob, the couple who stood up for us at our wedding. Tammy called Jonie and left a message on their answering machine in a hushed voice saying that she was calling from inside the closet and could Jonie please send her $5. She ended the call by saying that she had to go because "he's coming".
We didn't think much of it. We got in the car and drove to my sister's home in Shakopee. We weren't there long and when we got home we arrived to find two police cars parked out front. The officers separated Tammy and I and asked us questions about our relationship. They were concerned because Jonie had called them fearful for Tammy's well-being not realizing that Tammy was only joking in her message.
Before we got there they'd gained access to our house from a key provided to them by one of our neighbors. They went throughout our home looking for Tammy or evidence that she was a 'kept woman'. They didn't find any and I'm pretty sure they went into it with a heavy dose of skepticism knowing it was April 1st. They were just doing their job.
April Fools has been a much milder event around our house since those days. We learned a lesson. We felt bad for putting Jonie in that position but like any good joke, it seemed fine at the time.
of us together to mark the occasion. Mom isn't comfortable being the center of attention but she handled it well. Here's a video I put together from the brunch and some photos I uploaded to my Flickr account.If you made it to the end of the video link above you would've seen all of us siblings together with our mom. This would've been us from a much earlier time, circa 1970-71.
In my last blog post, I talked about some unknown person who didn't like my Obama sign. Both Saturday and Sunday mornings I went out to get the paper and found that my Obama sign had been covered with a black plastic bag.
I thought that maybe it was my neighbors across the street, Mark and Becky, playing a joke on me but I couldn't be sure.Last night I came home from the late shift at work and as I got out of my truck I noticed two McCain/Palin yard signs in the back of Tammy's car. Hmmm. I had no idea what she was doing with them. Was she being unfaithful to me? I had no idea that she was actually harboring affection for that ticket.
Everybody was asleep when I got in the door. I poured myself a glass of Merlot, watched the Amazing Race then went to bed after what had been a long day.
I got up this morning and went straight for the shower. Tammy was awake when I got out and I quizzed her about the signs in her car. She was trying to hold back a smile as I pressed her to fill me in as to what was going on. She said that I'd stumbled on to their plan and now the gig was up. I still didn't know what she was talking about.
She went on to say that She and Bryan were the ones who'd been covering our Obama sign with black plastic. She said they laughed so hard when I went out there the first morning
and found the covered sign. It got even funnier as I crouched down and took a photo of the disgraced sign and then came in and wrote on Facebook about it. I had no clue I was being had. I'd come in in the morning and talk about our Obama sign while they fought back a strong urge to laugh.So, the plan this morning was to place one McCain/Palin sign among the two signs I have out there. The real joke would be that they would replace the Obama sign with a McCain sign covered with black plastic. I'd remove the plastic thinking my Obama sign would be there only to find another McCain sign. Funny—and clever.
But somebody forgot to cover the signs in the back of her car and I saw them.
I said to Tammy that I should turn the joke on Bryan and tell him that I confronted my neighbor about covering my signs. I could tell him that we almost got in a fight about it just to see Bryan's reaction. She said that the last time we pulled a joke on somebody the cops got involved so maybe I shouldn't. She was right. Sometimes we get carried away with our quirky humor.
So I don't leave anybody hanging as to what we did that got the police involved in our joke I'll give a brief explanation.
It was April 1st, 2000. Tammy and I had been married less than a year and we'd had little contact with Jonie and Rob, the couple who stood up for us at our wedding. Tammy called Jonie and left a message on their answering machine in a hushed voice saying that she was calling from inside the closet and could Jonie please send her $5. She ended the call by saying that she had to go because "he's coming".
We didn't think much of it. We got in the car and drove to my sister's home in Shakopee. We weren't there long and when we got home we arrived to find two police cars parked out front. The officers separated Tammy and I and asked us questions about our relationship. They were concerned because Jonie had called them fearful for Tammy's well-being not realizing that Tammy was only joking in her message.
Before we got there they'd gained access to our house from a key provided to them by one of our neighbors. They went throughout our home looking for Tammy or evidence that she was a 'kept woman'. They didn't find any and I'm pretty sure they went into it with a heavy dose of skepticism knowing it was April 1st. They were just doing their job.
April Fools has been a much milder event around our house since those days. We learned a lesson. We felt bad for putting Jonie in that position but like any good joke, it seemed fine at the time.
Comments
Lisa...I love the digital world we live in and the ability to assemble books such as the one my brother put together for our mom. She treasures it. We took turns signing it for her...sort of like a high-school year book.