The Prank That Wasn't

I worked a day-long office event over the weekend, and since Jeff was out of town I asked my brother to let the dogs out at some point in the afternoon.  It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but any time one of us is in the other one’s house without supervision a prank is required.  Mandatory, even.  My favorite prank is to place some type of hideous decorative item in a prominent place in his house.  For years, we traded a God-awful giant multi-colored Christmas reindeer head that my mom made in the 1970’s.  I’d put it on his mantle regardless of the time of year and later he’d hang it on my mailbox or door also regardless of the time of year.  As I recall, there was also a heinous tree-topper angel that was in play for a while, until we sold it at a yard sale and split the $2 proceeds.

My best prank idea was to swap our cat for his cat when he was out of town so when he came home he would find the wrong cat, but I chickened out at the last minute because I thought his wife would probably lose her shit.  Clearly she loved her cat more than I loved ours.

Anyway, I was expecting to come home to some type of surprise and not necessarily the pleasant kind.  I looked all through the house, but I couldn’t find the prank.  I was getting worried.  I started thinking maybe he fed Boomer something that would give him gas more than usual or that something was going to pop out at night and surprise me as I slept.  The suspense was killing me.  I was looking everywhere for that damned prank.

Then I looked in the back yard.  There it was!  A big nasty grayish black fake snake.   GAH!!! Snakes are my kryptonite and my brother well knows it.  After a few deep breaths, I steeled my nerves to pick up the stupid fake snake to use for future retaliation.  I headed to the back door when I noticed that the fake snake was now on a different side of the back yard.  I know you’re going to think I’m a moron, but my first thought was that my brother was hiding in the woods and moving the fake snake around to scare me.  We really do take our pranks seriously.

Slowly it dawned on me that said snake was neither fake no a prank.  Strangely, I also realized that I was much less concerned about the actual snake than I was about finding a snake skin in the back yard recently.  At least I knew where this bastard was.  I decided I’d just keep an eye on it so I’d know when it left and could be correspondingly relieved.  After a flurry of texts to Jeff in North Carolina, dammit, I called my brother to let him know that if a *real* snake was his prank, the gloves were officially off.  He denied it but admitted he’s not above it.  Eventually, I decided the best course of action was just to go about my business in the house and never step foot in the back yard again.

About an hour later I decided to do snake surveillance, just to see what my archenemy was up to.  I scanned the yard, but no snakes in sight.  Woo Hoo!  The bastard was gone.  I bent down to hug Boomer to celebrate…and came face to face with that rat-bastard snake pressed up against the back glass of the door.  I screamed like a little bitch and ran around the corner into the kitchen.  I’m not proud of it, but a slithery snake surprise is more than I can handle.  I peered around the kitchen corner and noticed that the fucker had a big distended belly.  I’m pretty sure he’s been using my wildlife feeder to feed on the wildlife.  Jerk.

Boomer, meanwhile, was going crazy trying to get to the snake.  He was standing on his back legs and slamming his front paws on the sliding glass door.  I had visions of his 135-pound ass taking down the entire door, thereby allowing the snake access to the house.  Crap.  I kind of wondered what this little spectacle looked like from the other side of the glass.  Freaked out lady hiding around the corner screaming “Boomer, Boomer, Boomer!!!”, insane Great Dane repeatedly slamming his paws on the door and a Dalmatian looking back & forth between us like we’ve lost our damn minds.  Thank God we don’t have neighbors back there.

Fortunately, Boomer’s antics were enough to convince the snake to high-tail it out of there.  Boomer then spent the next two hours standing at attention and staring at the spot where the snake had been.  He has an amazing attention span.

You might think at this point that everything is fine.  But it’s not.  My bro elected not to play a prank on me at all, which caused me to believe that the snake was the prank, which escalated the entire ordeal.  I blame him entirely.  Payback will be a bitch.