We hit fast and furious after the card table masterpiece. I have to admit that the next night was less creative but almost as satisfying. Our victims are not Nebraska football fans...one could call them rabid unfans. So we bought a box of plastic forks and sticky notes shaped like N's and in the lovely shade of red.

11:30 p.m. their yard received a blessing of the many red N's. The following evening? A small pool party. Little arm floats, a couple of floating rings, an inflatable cellphone (very appropriate for this particular set of victims). We filled each item with a little water and a lot of air. If the wind blew, the items would remain.

Since we'd already hit them twice in one week we decided we needed to rock and roll the items because suspicion had to be climbing. So we did a quick park and run through the dark with a flick of a few wrists and wah-la, instant prank.

So far nothing had been said about any pranks. This was was a sick little game our prankees were playing. Holding their cards close to their chests as if they could outwit us... HA. Finally on morning number 4 after the water-free pool party, the youngest victim pressed the church secretary for some information. Yes! A sign of weakness, and our cue to back off for awhile.

Days passed. Then we found a hideous carved cow head on a stick at Hobby Lobby for 80% off. We actually found a chipped rooster and horse head, too. We chose the cow because the youngest victim would be leaving us at the end of summer and he needed to take a piece of Iowa home with him. A cow it was then.

We wrapped it in a brown paper sack. And then, in my most disguised handwriting I penned the following message. "Dear _,

Since you'll be heading back to Minnesota real soon, we just had to get you something to remind you of Iowa. When you look at this, remember us fondly."

Unsigned, of course, and then we waited until the perfect moment and left it outside his office door at the church.

He snapped and began asking around about the cow head. I think we have him convinced that one of two older church members who carve probably carved it as a special gift just for him.

hee, hee, hee.

I'll continue this saga later. I think this Saturday night will be the grand reveal, the final piece du resistance...but first I have a few more pranks to tell you about.

Just so no one thinks I'm dissin ya.

I'm away from my computer.

I'll be back in a week.

Sun, sleep, fun with family and friends and books await me in paradise.

I'll come back with pictures and stories.

Have a fabulous weekend one and all. A really long weekend.

I explained, in my post Shhh! how my children were shaped by pranking in their teen years.

The training is paying off nicely.

One night, several weeks ago, my eldest daughter, her best friend, who might as well be a daughter, and I sat around talking about what we might do to entertain ourselves. Trust me, this is harder than you might think. Our house has been in the process of being remodeled for 14 years. We have woods and a huge gully right out our back door. My kids have come up with some very creative entertainment. Tree tents...don't ask if you have a fear of heights. Rafter tag. Again, you probably don't want to go there. Roof hop.

Boredom can be a very dangerous thing in my family.

I'm not sure who birthed the idea, but it may have been a mob mentality thing. Suddenly, our friends (see Shhh!) came up, then came the reminiscing about pink flamingos and the fun of stealth, and the horror of getting caught, and the thrill of victory. A hasty plan was launched.

The multi-faceted problem? No flamingos. Hmmm. What kind of flamingo carrying store would be open at 10:30 on Saturday night, and could any of us afford the 10 flamingos to really make it worth our time? And aren't flamingos kind of yesterday?

But what else could was there? What to do?

And then one of us spied the "needs-to-get-tossed" card table and our minds began churning out ideas. Soon, we had a poker game complete with cards, a pizza box, plates, napkins, pop cans and chip bags spread out over the top of the table, covered in crumbs and a lonely pizza crust. We covered it in plastic to preserve our art. By the time we got it done and called it a masterpiece it was 11:30. A perfect time to visit our friend's yard and leave them a little gift.

Let the games begin.

Hee,hee,hee.

I think this spot is safe to disclose my secret. I've been dying to tell someone but my victims are scattered all over cyberspace and might read what I write. But you all are safe, right?

Here's the deal. I love pranking. No, not tossing eggs at siding or stringing toilet paper in trees that ends up getting wet and becoming a nightmare. No, I believe in creative pranking with maximum effect and little clean-up.

There is a couple at church that are fabulously amusing and with sick senses of humor...the victims. Living with them this summer is our summer youth intern. His favorite movies are the Three Amigos and Elf....need I say more?

Our distant history with pranking began as a youth fundraiser. I was the leader, we had a big trip coming up and I ran across the idea of putting plastic flamingos in peoples yard and collecting a fee to move them and plant them in other's yards. That summer, I drove get away as 5 or 6 kids plotted in the van as I drove stealthily to the "victims" home. Cutting the lights early and finding a place away from the visual field of the victims always gave me a buzz...

On three, the teens would jump out of the van and fan out covering the territory in a prank dance. My favorite moments involved the uberdramatic spy roll my son always executed on the way back to the van.

To say that summer was more fun than a barrel of monkeys (which really wouldn't be fun at all if you think of the monkey poop) is an understatement.

More later.... I think I hear someone coming.

I have a tendency to let things linger WAY beyond expiration dates in the fridge. I keep pushing iffy items to the back of the shelves hoping that they will vaporize spontaneously and eject clean containers onto the counter for me to put away. Some of the worst stuff, not that green odoriferous fuzzy isn't awful, are spills that adhere to the glass surfaces.

I have spent hours soaking, scrubbing and scraping congealed combinations of syrup and ketchup with a Pepsi chaser out of cracks and crevices. YUCK.

So this has me thinking. Which is always kind of a frightening thing.

Have you ever seen a bitter mask encase a face? There's nothing like it. A couple of years ago (or way longer) there was a commercial about beer and some whacked-out rubber-faced guy took a sip out of a can and convulsed into a "bitter beer face.

I'll never forget the first time I saw it really happen to someone I was talking with. A friend was describing a hurt she'd experienced years ago. A dozen or more years ago. Not to make light of her pain, pain is pain, after all, but the incident she described left me scratching my head.

The wound was a stupid and mean-spirited comment tossed out by a selfish person. Wrong. Selfish. Mean. Yes. But something that deserved to be labeled as above, not consumed by my friend so that it sat in her stomach causing emotional indigestion for over a decade.

As my friend described this scene, her face changed. It morphed into a tight, squinty-eyed frown and her voice warbled as her emotion ramped up into full blown anger. I could almost see her blood pressure rise.

Life is too short. Selfish and clueless people are too plentiful.

If you have someone who raises your blood pressure in a bad way, do yourself a favor and figure out why, then do what you can to forgive, build protective barriers, or stop answering the phone when that number pops up in your caller ID.

While you're at it, go clean out your fridge, or come on over and I'll let you have a go at mine.