Who’s the stinker

The best joke I ever played. Sometime ago when Blockbuster Video was still a thing I was feeling ornery. The internet was new and I spent many late nights at the campus computer lab. Finding hacking sites, bulletin boards on Star Trek, MUD rooms, the beginnings of the World Wide Web. Information was there, you just needed to know where and how to find it. Information that was once hidden now out for everyone who was looking. I came across a security ‘room’ discussion on how stores protect their inventory. You know those things that prevent you from walking out the door with what you shouldn’t be walking out the door with.

The family was down in Old Mesilla doing the tourist thing. Browsing the shops, having lunch and just spending time together. All but my father. Oh he was there, but It wasn’t that he hated window shopping, but was content to just stay outside in the square while my mother, Gran, sisters and I were going in ever shop. It was a hot day, and he didn’t even want to get out of the sun.

That night at the dinner table Mom mentioned that it was a fun day, but Dad wasn’t having any of it. Being a stinker I think were her words. As he began to explain, I listened. “I don’t like going in those shops because those security gates are always beeping at me.” It took a quick second but.. I smiled.

The smile turned into laughter that I couldn’t quite stop. For about 2 min, I could barely speak. It wasn’t Daddio that said anything but Mom sure piped up. “Scott, are you tormenting your father again?” Dad for sure looked me up and down. Still smiling, but the Mom voice sure made my laughter almost go silent. I asked dad for his wallet. And I had to go retrieve it from his dresser.

Sitting back at the table, I opened it up. Way down beneath the bills and receipts and lint there it was. Three long months after I’d snuck it there. Totally forgotten about. At least by me.

Now the grin on my dad showed, as I handed his wallet back. Of course minus the security tape place ever so lovingly. He begins to share that he has increasingly hated going to stores. More beeping when he arrives, and beeping when he leaves. Nothing but a common theif. He had even gotten used to the University library looking at him every time he entered. They all just nodded at each other…. “Hey Monte. Back again? Don’t forget to check those books out.”

It’s not that we never shopped or went out, but I honestly forgot about that tag I placed in his wallet. It’s been three months and the joke kept coming. I’m kinda sad I never got to see his face when those security things went off.

Oh well. He taught me well.

Unrelated side note. The picture is the half-way tree between the house I grew up in and my Grandparents houses in Aztec and Farmington. (a pretty close anyway, like almost exact to the halfway point from Farmington to Aztec) Spent many summers down there. I’m glad to have know them in such a close way.