Let it snow

I've always been a fan of practical jokes. I think they're good for the soul, and to see one of your buddies go barnyard is just plain funny.

While my slow (and some would say nonexistent) ascent into adulthood has seen more of my time taken up by more pressing matters, I still like to take the time to think of a way to pick on one of my friends until they cry like a little girl. The friend in this case is named Doug.

A year or so back we had a decent snow here in Lenoir County. It snowed on a Wednesday night, and snow was on the ground for most of Thursday.

Doug works at a local grocery store, and he has Thursdays and Sundays off. I decided to have some fun with him on his day off. My plan was to disguise my voice, call him up and pretend that he was needed at work due to people in eastern North Carolina going berserk because of two inches of snow.

I was Don Adams incarnate; I even rattled some paper over the mouthpiece to disguise my voice.

I call Doug's number ... no answer. His voicemail picks up and I leave the following message: "Hey Doug, this is Jim at work. These people are losing their minds over this snow. They're stocking up on bread and Vienna sausages faster than we can stock them. Can you come in?"

I hang up.

For the rest of the day, I hear nothing. Doug is notorious for not answering his voicemail or returning calls, but it's understandable. Being a single guy with no responsibilities can wear a guy down.

Fast forward a couple of days and Doug is at my house to watch a movie. After a few minutes, he starts telling me how somebody tricked him into going to work.

"How's that?" I asked.

He said that he got a call on Thursday morning. The line was really scratchy (the rattling paper worked!), but he heard somebody say "snow" and "stock". He assumed it was his boss from the store, so he called in to see what was up.

Doug continued: "I called my boss and asked if he had called me. He said that he hadn't called, but since I was up, could I come in and help out."

Doug then talked about how angry he was that he'd had to go in to work on his day off, that if he ever caught who did it he'd smack them in the head with a microwave, etc.

I put on my best poker face and didn't say a word. For months and months I would ask him about it, and I would even suggest who I thought may have set him up. There was a guy at his store that was an obnoxious Duke fan, so for a few weeks I tried to pin it on him.

If you're going to mess with one guy's head, you might as well mess with two.

Those of you reading this may think that it's crazy for me to expose to the world what I have done. I say that it doesn't matter, for you see, Doug doesn't read, unless you count the back of a Cap ‘n Crunch box as literature.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Jon Dawson's column appears every Thursday in The Free Press. You can reach him at