“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Anthony Weldon
On March 31, I considered the date. I would do well to brace for whatever trickery arose in our house the next day. I didn’t have to say anything about the first of April, though, because Dicka soon enough reminded me of my future.
“Do you know what day it is tomorrow?” An impish smile infiltrated her words. “You better watch your back.”
Ricka wasn’t much better. Her passing comments about looming mischief were sunny but vague. “You never know,” she said. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
Flicka responded to her sisters’ words like an innocent receiver instead of a prankster. But what would prove true? Only Husband, who was mildly aware of the upcoming tradition, seemed guileless.
I stepped from March 31 into April 1 with low-grade dread and heightened expectations, and the day, dawning in question marks, ended in exclamation points.
I let out a shout when I spotted a spider (constructed of yarn and toothpicks) on my closet floor, and Flicka and I located our car keys inside a cooler. At least a note on the counter gave us a hint to their whereabouts.
Ricka detected Skittles tucked into the folds of her loofah, her underwear slung over the shower head, a rugby ball under her pillow, and her Bible in the refrigerator.
Husband found a single banana chip balancing on his steering wheel and another one on the shelf in his shower.
Flicka happened upon her water bottle, journal, hand towel, Aquaphor, and makeup Saran-wrapped into a ball and secured to the lid of her toilet.
Dicka discovered she had poured garlic-flavored kefir into her coffee from the French Vanilla creamer bottle.
The day ended safely, and I got ready for bed. Someone had fooled me twice with the spider and missing keys. Shame on me.
I squeezed toothpaste onto my toothbrush. But what was that in the paste? A sliver of plastic? I picked the tiny bit out of the goo. Ah, an uncooked grain of white rice. Insidious. How very insidious.
Fool me three times? Apparently so.
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*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.