Once upon a time, when Papa was just a little boy,
hhe rarely played pranks upon his father, Dada, because as funny as such an event might be, there was an almost certainty of a spanking following the practical joke. But when Dougie was eight years old he had a brainstorm of an idea, and just had to try it out on his father. It just happened to be one of those odd times when Dada was working the graveyard shift, and so was home during the daytime in summer when Dougie and his sisters were enjoying their summer holiday from school, and recently Mama had purchased something extremely wonderful for Dougie, something he had found at the store that seemed to promise and unending supply of fun, practical jokes, and probably more than a few spankings.
What was the wonderful purchase that proved the wellspring for so many wonderful thoughts of suckering suckers, and bamboozling the bonkered?Invisible thread.Doesn't that sound just amazing? Invisible thread. What eight-year-old boy could ever resist something called "invisible thread?" It almost sounded as good as "X-ray Specs," which, yes, Dougie did once order from the back of a comic book, along with a giant ghost that was supposed to fly around your house, and an amazing set of skeletal hands that would scamper out of your pocket and astound both friends and enemies. And none of it worked. Yes, there is a sucker born every minute, and Dougie proved quite the sucker through the years. P.T. Barnum would have adored Dougie. At least suckering him, would the great and mighty Barnum.Dougie accompanied Mama on her nightly shopping trips, all over Lancaster, and sometimes in the land of far-away Palmdale, and Dougie was awfully good at begging. He was sure to come home with treats from gum-ball machines, trinkets from the high-pressure impulse-buy rack right next to the checkout, and the oddball toy here and there (Mama was as much a sucker for her son as he would be when he grew up and became the extreme sucker for his own children when they scream: "Can I have this, puh-lease? Papa, huh, puh-LEAZE Papa can I have this?"). When Harrison was a little boy and would switch into this inherited trait of begging for treats, Papa would half-shriek in frustration: "No! You can't have it, I don't have any money! Get it? I'm broke! I'm all out of money." Harrison would usually, calmly respond: "That's okay, Papa. Let's go to the bank and you can get some more money!" Years later, when Harrison was grown up, Bronte and Dirklan and Wolfy would somehow apply this very same logic, and Papa, half-bald by now, would continue his half-shriek: "I don't have any money, I'm tellin' ya, no money, no money, NO MONEY!"). But still, despite the lack of money, and without resulting to shoplifting, Harrison would always come home with trinkets galore, and later so would his siblings, and this is all a mystery to this day, as to where in the world all that trinket money is coming from.When Dougie spotted the invisible thread in Gemco (a very early Lancaster version of Wal-mart, a big store fully of clothing departments, sporting goods, grocery sections and just about everything else a boy could imagine), he set right into begging, and although Mama made her last stand, reminding Dougie of all the other gimmicks to which he'd fallen sucker, Dougie refused to relent, and Mama finally sighed and threw the spool of invisible thread in with all the rest of the groceries. "It won't work," she assured him, referring to the proclaimed invisibility of the thread, not Dougie's success in begging, because the begging everybody already knew worked with Mama.But the invisible thread at least worked. Sort of. It wasn't quite invisible (as Mama promised it couldn't be, because, like, that was impossible, wasn't it?). It was just a little bit less easy to see. And it was stronger than regular thread, probably at least as strong as kite string, so you could hang things from it, on this special invisible thread (clear, nylon thread), like model airplanes, and miniature ghosts made from tissues balled inside of tissues, and fake spiders which not only scared your sisters, but made both Mama AND Dada yodel in terror at first glance (growing up in Quartz Hill, California, and black widow spiders are hardly a laughing matter) (and the spiders even ended up scaring poor Dougie, who would forget he had hung them in certain places, and occasionally he would go to grab one of his fake-o spiders and then realize with horror that it wasn't fake, that some insane maniac had replaced the toy spider with a real black widow!).One morning while Pammy and Donna watched The Andy Griffith Show, Dougie enacted one of his diabolical practical jokes. He appropriated one of Dada's old threadbare socks, tied some miraculous invisible thread to the toe of the sock, and then placed the doctored sock upon one of the couches in the Big Room (today it would probably be called a TV room). He ran the thread down between the cushions, around the side of the couch, and then held the string ready in his sweaty fist, just waiting to spring his scheme upon any vicitim (please insert evil laughter at this point)."Hey Pammy! Is that your sock over there on the couch?" says Dougie, ten feet away from said couch and sock, so who in the world would suspect the monstrous mayhem about to ensue?"That's a man's sock. That's Dada's sock," Pammy replies, the completely innocent victim-to-be."No, I think that's YOUR sock," Dougie says, all matter-of-factly.Pammy sighs, rolls her eyes, vaults off the couch as Don Knotts in the role of Barney Fife drops bullets all over the ground in his patented comical handshake on the big old color console television set. But as Pammy approaches the sock, Dougie yanks the string with all his might, and miracle of miracles......the sock seemingly vanishes. (more evil laughter plays here)Pammy stands blinking at the couch. She was positive the sock had been there. She had seen it with her own eyes. She looks to her brother, blinking innocently (and her brother mirrors her looks of innocence, although he is obviously not as genuine at present). Her mouth hangs slightly slack. She looks back to the couch to make sure that the sock has not miraculously reappeared (which would have been an even better prank, but Dougie never quite figured out how to pull that part off)."Where'd it go?" Pammy asks."Where'd WHAT go?" Dougie breathes, VERY disingenuously.Pammy returns to her place on the opposite couch, scratching her head. In a matter of moments she is immersed in mythical Mayberry.Innoculously, Dougie reloads his trap. Hey, Donna? Is that your sock? Amazingly, the trick works, again! Except that Donna immediately pounces upon the couch and lifts the cushion to discover the vanished sock."Stupid Dougie," she says, which everyone says, all the time, and which might be why Dougie grew up to have an IQ comparable to a Cockapoo, or is that a cockatoo? But still, it was a good trick, and had worked, TWICE.Then Dada lumbers into the Big Room, half awake, looking for something before he will lumber off back to bed.Dougie considers. It would be fun, to spring his prank on Dada. But dangerous. Decidedly dangerous. You couldn't ever tell with Dada, because sometimes he could be playful, and even display a sense of humor. But more probably he would spank Dougie if his sock vanished right in front of his nose.Dougie gambled. He quickly reloaded his trap and then said, very innocently, very sweetly: "Dada? Is that your sock on the couch?"Dada blinked, half asleep, and lumbered toward the couch. Dougie waited. Donna and Pammy poised, waited, dreading what would probably happen to their poor dear brother, the numbskull, playing with fire first thing in the morning.Dada, lumbering, the size of a Mack truck, approached the loaded trap. He reached for his sock, and Dougie pulled, and the sock vanished.Dada stood staring at the place where his sock had recently been. He stood straight, blinking. He looked on this side of the couch. He scratched his wild hair, which always stood up in Bozo points in the morning. He stood staring about, the look on his face so comically confused that the three children burst into simultaneous laughter.Then he turned around and lumbered off back to bed.Sometimes, especially in the summer months, life was good. And invisible thread was pretty nifty, too."You're crazy," six-year-old Pammy said.Donna, still laughing, said: "I felt sorry for him. He looked so sad when the sock disappeared.""Me too," Pammy said.Dougie just felt lucky to be alive.All Stories © 2009 Douglas Christian Larsen
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