Childhood Pranking!

When I was a child in the early 70s, life was very different. We lived by different standards and things that are considered gross now, were acceptable back then.

As a treat, my mum bought our dog a pig’s head from the butchers, although I don’t think the dog was that impressed. But my brother and were, and the first thing we noticed was how it had human-like eyes.

We decided, and goodness knows why, to remove one of them. So we went into the house for a fork. My brother put the head under his arm and I poised to dig in intending to flick it out. Only, I couldn’t do it.

“You try,” I told him. We swapped places and as I held the pig under my arm, he poised the fork over the eye – and froze.

We looked at each other and laughed. Why couldn’t we do it? It was ridiculous. So being the big sister, I took the fork back and aimed it once more at the eye. But still couldn’t do it.

“I know,” said my brother. “Let’s take it to Rodney.” Rodney was our neighbour and a butcher, if anyone could, he could.

“Good idea,” I replied, and off we went.

Now I think back, Rodney didn’t appear surprised at seeing two kids on his doorstep with a pig’s head asking to take the eye out.

“Sure,” he said. Without hesitation, he took the head and the fork, and popped it out. We walked home with the eyeball balancing on my brother’s palm.

Running upstairs, I returned with a ring box and my brother carefully put the eye inside. He pressed it down with his finger to make sure it stayed in place. I watched in morbid fascination. Off we went to the lounge where mum sat, and presented her with the ring box.

“Mum, we have a present for you.”

Her face lit up as she took it. “Oh thank you, that’s very kind of you,” she said. She thought we had done something nice for her. I hesitated wondering if she thought it was a real gift. My brother grinned and I smiled sweetly.

Mum opened the box, let out an almighty scream and tossed it in the air. The eyeball catapulted off the ceiling. bounced off the wall, to the floor where rolled under the chair.

Mum was not amused, as we shot upstairs with her chasing us!