Busted

BYU is still number 1 in our hearts even if they didn't win the bowl game

Since we're too far away from Las Vegas to go to the BYU bowl game, we happily accepted the invitation to the Alpers' house for bowl game festivities. Also invited to the party were the Schneiders as the token Arizona fans. As part of our pre-game activites, we decided a little prank was in order. We went to the Schneiders and decorated their car in appropriate fashion for a BYU tailgating party. We intended to slip in quietly, do the job and then slip away unnoticed. Along the way, we made several mistakes. Learn from these follies, dear readers, so that you do not repeat them.


The root beer cans (noncaffeinated) were the final touch

Mistake No. 1: Pulling a prank in the daylight. The game started a little less than an hour after dark, so we would have been pushing it to be able to get the job done before the Schneiders had to leave for the party. So we decided it was worth the risk of going out in the light. As I walked up to the Schneiders' driveway, I looked around, decided things were safe and went to work. The windows of the first van were soon decorated, and I slipped under the van to start tying soda cans to the car. At this point, I was surprised to hear the sound of a small voice, one that didn't belong to one of our children. "My friend used to live here. Did he move?" I assured the small red-headed child that his friend did still live here and that we were just decorating his family's car. "I'm going to knock on the door and see if he still lives here." Evidently this boy didn't believe my assurances and wanted to see for himself. I begged him to wait until after I was done with the cans and then he could knock on the door. This seemed to do the trick and the neighbor boy continued to chat with me as I worked on the van.

Mistake No. 2: Assuming that the target wouldn't have a lookout. As I initially approached the Schneider house, I looked over the front yard and the windows of the house to make sure I wasn't going to be spotted. "You have nothing to worry about," Teressa told me. "They're never out front." And so it appeared at the beginning of our adventure. Up to the point when I slid under the back of their van, I had managed to go unnoticed by our targets. Of course, as I'm talking to the neighbor boy all of a sudden he says, "There's a man painting in there." This doesn't sound good, but I can't see the front of the house, so the significance is somewhat lost on me at this point.

Mistake No. 3: Pulling a prank with our children in tow. You know they won't sit quietly in the car waiting for me to finish vandalizing the Schneiders' car. Both of the boys wanted to be out of the car. And if they are out of the car they certainly couldn't hold still. And none of our boys has ever been known as the silent type. In fact, I would say that both Mason and Spencer display an utter lack of ninja skills. (The book is still out on Sam.) The red-headed kid was right. At this point, Randy was up in the second floor front bedroom overlooking the driveway, and he had already seen both Mason and Spencer, though he hadn't seen me and didn't realize what we were up to at that time.

Mistake No. 4: Not pre-tying the string to the soda cans. In retrospect, If I had strung up the soda cans before we went to the Schneiders, I could have just tied them to the car and we could have been on our way. Next time I will know better. As things were progressing, Teressa became impatient with the wait and decided to wander over to help decorate the other van that was parked out in the street. She didn't properly reconnoiter the surroundings, however and totally missed seeing the man standing in the window over the driveway. Randy saw her slink over to his van and start painting the windows. He alerted Cassie and the next thing I know, I hear her shouting, "What do you think you're doing!" At this point I couldn't hold it back any longer and I busted up laughing. That's the only reason they knew I was there. I guess even my ninja skills need a little work.

Fortunately the Schneiders were good sports about the prank. Of course, after BYU lost they returned the favor by decorating our van while it sat in the church parking lot the next day. But then there were those University of Utah shirts they gave us for Christmas. Now it's starting to get personal.