Today, I woke up at 9am French time. The weather was overcast and rainy and for once, it made the temperature cool. This was nice for trying to sleep. I cleaned my teeth and washed before heading downstairs and doing not much of anything for a little while. I like having nothing to do. I know some people get bored, but most of the time I seem to be busy so I appreciate times where I can do nothing but stare at flypaper and be half impressed and half repulsed, even if this is supposedly a sign of depression.
My Auntie Helen and her husband Tony had stayed overnight en route to somewhere else in France. I find it hard to refer to Tony as my uncle as he's only been like that for a couple of years and isn't that much older than me. It has nothing to do with hatred. Dad and Tony had decided to go fishing so made my Mum go and pick up some maggots when she went for croissants. My Dad came up with this hilarious joke - to hand Tony a stack of plates to put round the breakfast table with maggots squirming around on the second tier. He found himself hilarious but as usual, my mum was not impressed with his antics. Tony found the maggots, was slightly surprised and laughed a bit. But that was only half my Dad's joke. He then proceeded to mind game Tony.
"Would you like a croissant Tony... have that one there. No, not that one, the one next to it". Again, Tony laughed nervously. He was then offered very specific pots of jam, cups of coffee etc, the implication being that they were all teeming with maggots. The problem is, you can never quite be sure with My Dad and Tony ate breakfast in a state of nervous awareness. There was nothing actually there, which made My Dad proud and smug.
Helen is Dad's sister and about 15 years his junior. She knows his tricks and shared a tale from their childhood that goes like this: One April Fool, my dad tied a flag in a lavender tree in their garden. That was it. Only Helen was very young and always has been an easy target. The trick progressed in a way nearly only my Father would devise and then find amusing.
"Helen, there's a flag in the lavender tree"
"No there's not. You're April Fooling me."
"Ah, ok, if you're sure. But supposing there actually IS a flag in the lavender tree, you would actually have just made yourself a fool with that decision."
Helen told us that she was young enough to actually be concerned about being considered a fool, so walked towards the window. My Dad let her get nearly there before casually saying, "But of course...". Helen stopped in her tracks. "...If, as you originally suspected, there is no flag, then in a few seconds you will be an April Fool."
This game of cat and mouse continued for about half an hour until Helen broke down in tears screaming on the floor and my Gran (their mother) was forced to run into the room to see what the fuss was about. Of course, the fact that there was a flag in the tree became redundant. But the genius of it was, that my Dad had actaully made the effort to go outside and put one ther. Even better than that was that if you consider that he is 15 years older than her and that Helen actually remembers this, that would have made him around 19. There are only 4 other people in the world capable of this kind of thing. 3 of them are my brothers. I'm the last one, and thinking about it now, this fact makes me a bit sad.
Eventually, Dad and Tony went fishing. Fish are rank and if I'm going to do nothing, I'll do it properly - not under the pretense I'm taking part in some kind of sporting activity. Thusly, I opted out. After a while though, I decided to run to the pond, 3.75 miles away, just to irritate them. When I got there, I kept giving my dad useless tips and telling jokes about fish and fishing. Fish kept jumping out the water in the centre of the pond, so in my wisdom, I told dad to watch for them, then throw the floating plastic device on his string to where he'd just seen one land. this meant he actually knew there'd be one around, as there clearly weren't any where he was. He gritted his teeth, but 2 minutes later my hilarious exclamation that motor pike and side carp were the fastest fish in the world gave me the response I was after; he lost his temper and told me to shut up. Then I changed tact and began commenting on his ongoing lack of success. I was totally buzzing of myself, but he was glad when I eventually left. However, this didn't happen with out an appearance from Mong Utan.
I'd heard the legends before. My dad told me he lived in the woods around the pond and came out to either fish or annoy fishermen. His arms are an awful lot longer than they should be (like an Orang Utan) and he is retarded. I wondered whether he was communicating in French, but my parents assured me that it wasn't and that he was just simple. With him standing next to me and making me feel slightly uneasy, Dad just turned round and said, right in front of him. "Have you checked out the size of his arms?". Mong Utan started chanting something, then ran off to some other fishermen. One of my favourite things in life is watching people with stupid runs. Normally, I don't target people who I suspect of being mentally handicapped, but he WAS funny and he looked so happy that I didn't feel bad for thinking this. When he stopped, I then watched him reach out about 6 metres into the pond and catch a fish with his bare hands, before barking like a dog in the face of the permit checker.
The permit checker then came over to us and said things I didn't understand. Dad grinned and in his best smug face said "avec pleasure". That is my Dad's humour again for you.
On the way home, I got out the car and tried to take a spy photo of mong utan next to the permit checker. When the flash went off, they erupted in French, the only words of which I could understand were "photo" and "flash". Assuming these have the same meaning in English, I realised they were onto me. I ran away before jumping into the car and instructing them to drive home quickly.
Dad caught three fish. Every one was smaller than his hand. Tony caught none.