Mischief 　　　(2003.3.24)

  I was MISCHIEVOUS in my childhood. Although I behaved as a good boy at school, once I got out of school, I tried many kinds of tricks to my family, my friends and even to strangers. 

If your canned COFFEE tasted just like WATER, how would you react?

Perhaps I was eight or nine. I hit on a great idea to surprise my father. In those days my father often drank a can of coffee at home after work. On that day, as usual, my mother had bought a canned coffee and had put it in a refrigerator. I secretly took out the canned coffee and tried to hammer a big NAIL onto the bottom of the can. Why do you think I did such a thing? --- Yes! I tried to drain the coffee out of the can through a hole. Naturally, the bottom of the can was so hard. I was powerless, so I needed to hammer many times. I wondered if I could really make a hole. But finally the nail penetrated the bottom. A hole was made there. Good!  I was delighted. But at the next moment I was at a loss. The coffee DIDN’T COME out of the can when I turn the can upside-up. I even shook the can but only a little coffee fell in drops. Why is this? I puzzled myself for a moment.
  However, I was a SMART boy. I noticed, I need to make another hole to let the air go through!  It worked. After I made the second hole, the coffee smoothly came running out of the can, and I succeeded to drain all the coffee. Then, the next step. I turned on the faucet a little and made the water running very thinly. And through the hole, I put the water into the can. Now the can was filled with water. As the final step, I put cellophane tape firmly onto the holes. Done! I said to myself. I put that canned WATER (disguised as a canned coffee) in the refrigerator and waited for my father to come back home.
  My father came back home after a day’s hard work. As my expectation, he opened the refrigerator right away. He found the can and took it out. He opened the can and drank “the liquid” thirstily.
  What do you think his first word was? That was not what I had expected.
  He said, “Mmm? This coffee is WEAK.” and he CONTINUED TO DRINK! He didn’t seem to realize the mischief at all. I whispered to him in my mind, It is not WEAK COFFEE! It is WAAATERRRRRRR!!! ... but in vain.
  I had wanted him to realize my EXCELLENT trick. My ideal reaction was “Oh! You've tricked me again! You are very good at tricking! How did you do this?”　…　But this time, I had to TELL HIM the fact and explain the trick BY MYSELF. I had a miserable feeling.
  So, after all, this mischief resulted in a failure. To make him realize or surprise, I should have put ORANGE JUICE or something instead of water 

 What would you do if the newspaper you were reading turned out to have VERY OLD news?

I had been keeping a newspaper of a day neatly for one year. Yes, it took me ONE YEAR to prepare this mischief. Why did I keep the newspaper? To surprise my parents. How? I put that old newspaper in the mailbox early in the morning on exactly the same day of the NEXT YEAR.
  On that morning, I stealthily replaced the REAL newspaper of the day to the OLD newspaper. Cleverly, I didn’t replace the advertisement papers. Which means I took out the day’s paper from the mailbox, took out ads from the paper, put the ads in the prepared OLD newspaper, and put the “surprise” old newspaper in the mailbox.
  My father used to read newspapers every morning. On that day, as usual, he fetched the newspaper from the mailbox, but he didn’t open it until I went out to school.
  On the way to school, I felt thrilled, imagining how my parents were going to be surprised at the tricked newspaper. What was going to be their reaction? I was so curious. At school, I was really looking forward to going back home and to asking my parents about today’s newspaper.
  Let me tell you the consequence first. This time my mischief resulted in success. Big success. To be precise, it was TOO big.
  On that day, my mother and father came back home later than usual. I wanted to ask them about the newspaper. But I realized that asking them such a thing was the same as telling them I did it.  So I made believe that I didn’t know anything and waited them to talk about that.
  As the matter of fact, there was no need to wait long. My father told me boastfully.
  “Hey, listen! We had a very strange experience this morning!”
  I was pleased to hear that but I didn’t show the pleasure to him and said, “Oh?”
  “Can you believe this? The newspaper delivered this morning was the newspaper of the LAST YEAR! Pretty weird, huh?”
  Good! This trick succeeded! I was content. But my father’s words didn’t stop there.
  “So I TELEPHONED TO THE NEWSPAPER OFFICE to MAKE A COMPLAINT. I told them that old paper had been delivered today. They were so much surprised, and said that no such information had come from other households.”
  It was ME that was surprised this time. Oh my goodness! He phoned the newspaper office! He shouldn’t have! It was just a little joke!
  He continued, “The office staff said that this was extremely rare case, so they really wanted to come here to INTERVIEW us.”  What!?  An interview by newspaperman?  I turned pale.
  “But I declined it. We were busy with our job. We didn’t have time to be interviewed today. Maybe some other day…” I felt saved. And I had no other choice than confessing the truth honestly.
  “YOU did it? What a time-taking trick you have done!”
  Fortunately, I was not scolded. We could laugh about the mischief at dinner. And it became a “funny story” of our family.
  But what if they DID have time to be interviewed on that morning? Probably the case would have been taken up in the day’s evening paper as a column or a mini article. Then it would have become not “funny story” but “embarrassing story” of our family. When I play a trick, I had better think of the consequence. I should not try tricks which could lead to an uproar, I learned from the case.

 But the lesson had been FORGOTTEN easily. Even after that case, my trouble-making mischief continued endlessly.

 One day I taped the voice from a phone; ”This number you call is not available now. Please check the number once again and call the correct number.”
  Then I phoned a friend of mine, and as soon as he got the phone, I played the tape at the receiver. I could hear him shouting something, but it was not clear because I could not put my ear directly onto the receiver. I just enjoyed imagining his reaction and I quietly hang up after the tape ended.
  The next day at school, he came up to me and said, “I KNOW you did it.”
  Of course “number display function” had not been developed at that time. Then why could he know that I did? His answer was simple.
  “Because there is no other people who tries such an ECCENTRIC mischief.”  

Another day at supermarket, I invented a new mischief again.
  There were a lot of alarm clocks displayed on a counter. I suppose there were more than twenty. A variety of shapes and a variety of colors. All of them had batteries and the hands were moving normally. They all indicated the right time.
  I picked up one of them, and SET ALARM at the specific time; about 5 minutes later. And I did the same thing with about ten other clocks. OK. These clocks will make noisy alarm sound a few minutes later at the same time. Ha ha ha… The salespeople will be surprised and will have big trouble stopping all the noise. And I left the area in order not to be caught as the “criminal”. I waited for THE TIME at a distant place. A few minutes later, the first alarm sound could I hear. The sound was pretty big as my expectation. Then, the next alarm, and the next alarm... Many kinds of noise were ringing at the area. It was a great success. But suddenly I felt scared at what I had done, and RAN AWAY from the place. So I don’t know the reaction of the salespeople, but I guess they were very surprised. And I guess they had trouble finding ringing clocks and stopping all the noise. And I guess that they GOT FURIOUS with the “criminal”.

Now I am working in a drugstore. Sometimes I come upon mischievous kids there. For example, they knock down the goods, they move price cards to different positions, and they even play hide-and-seek in the store. I confess that I don’t have good impression toward them, to say the least. Son of a bitch! I sometimes say in my mind.
  But wait. Remember when I was their age. I was the very person to whom salespeople said, “Son of a bitch!”
  So, maybe I should be a little more generous to the kids.