Hazardous Horseplay

We lay like commandos in the ditch waiting for our prey to approach. We waited, hardly breathing, hearing only the sounds of the summer night. Darkness nestled around us, hiding us in the prairie grass.

At last! “Here comes one.” Laurie whispered. A pair of lights were slowly climbing up the road. Donna quickly put the mask over her head. A hideous thing with a mass of black hair sticking out all over like Medusa's snakes and a distorted, wrinkled old face that turned her into a frightful sight, even though I'd seen this transformation on numerous nights.

“Get ready.” Laurie murmured beside the two of us. The car was coming slowly toward us, nearing the bend in the road, where we waited unseen. As it was rounding the bend, up Donna popped from our hiding place in the ditch, and moving jerkily as if she was an escapee from an asylum, made her unearthly presence seen briefly by the driver. Many drivers would peel away at breakneck speed and we would howl with laughter at this sight.

This was great fun for three bored teenagers in the 1970s. Laurie was supposed to be babysitting her brother and sister, but after they were tucked away sleeping, we'd sneak down to our hiding spot. Donna brought the mask, purloined from her mom's past Halloween costume. But I came up with the scheme after reading my favorite author, James Herriot, how he had written about a similar stunt that his character, wisecracking Tristan, played on the town folk. I thought it was a real hoot!

This new scheme of scaring drivers late at night on an otherwise empty road, was exciting and daring to me and a step up from my usual harmless ventures. It was the only one that mom didn't find out about. She was like a detective and always found out one way or the other. Some were obvious. The time when I was six years old and my sister marched me home, soaked to the skin looking like a little wet rat because I had fallen into the nearby creek while crossing on a makeshift board ala bridge. I was just following my older sisters. Mom drew the water in the bathtub and plunked me in because I smelled “creeky.”

As a freshman in high school, she caught me jumping over the two fences of the six lane highway and was happily walking home before I saw her waiting for me. She didn't understand why I didn't want to ride the slow bus the entire circuit around to get home forty minutes earlier. She never grounded or punished me. She would simply look at me, shake her head and say, “What were you thinking?!”

Getting back to scaring unsuspecting drivers, we really WEREN'T thinking. I was not yet a driver, so I never realized the implications a fright like that may cause. There could've been an accident or worse still, the driver could've had a heart attack. This was a time before cell phones and easy access to taking pictures of anything.

But as I said, we really weren't thinking. There was a creek near the ditch where we'd hide and so there were many a foggy summer's night. This added to the mystery to our escapade. Add to that, one lone street light at the bend in the road. Our stage was set. The eerie fog, the dim street light, a full moon peeking through the cloud cover. We took advantage of that night and set out to ambush our unsuspecting victims. We didn't know that that would be the last time of our stunt.

We saw the headlights on the rise of the road and made ready. Just as the car turned, up Donna rose from the ditch looking as frightful and hideous as she always did. We really thought we gave them a good scare because the hit the gas and we roaring away. But we became careless, because Donna took the mask off and we stood up and were laughing hysterically. We saw the car stop, because they had seen us and were coming back toward us. Our luck had run out and the three of us ran pelting through the tall grass toward the creek to get away from the angry occupants who realized they had been hoodwinked. We did escape, putting away the mask for good never to play that prank again. When the three of us were much older, this prank was never brought up to even reminisce about.

Mom, I never told you about this foolish and most dangerous stunt and you never found out about it either. I know you would've scolded me and simply said, “What were you thinking?!”