The Eight-Month Setup
I once waited eight months to play a joke.
In 2000, I got a job working in the local supermarket as a cleaner. I lived a frugal life, worked my three days a week, and mopped a lot of floors. My plan was to go back to college, but I didn’t tell my parents.
I handed my notice in one week in early September, and over the dinner table I told my parents. “I quit” I said. My folks knew I had saved up some money, and I could see the panic in their eyes. “Was I going to buy a car?” and “Was I going to go travelling?” they asked me, with the unasked question being “Are you going to be getting high again?”.
I held the tension for as long as possible, and when I finally said “I’m going back to college”, I remember my mum flopping over sideways in relief. Maybe she didn’t – after all, it’s been ten years, and memory changes. But that was the joke that took eight months to set up.
