The Popcorn Stand: Fool’s Gold

I love April Fools’ Day. Actually, I really don’t care that much about April Fools’ Day because I never wait until April 1 to pull a good prank — or to watch someone else pull a good prank or be the victim of a good prank. I’ve been the victim of a good prank from time to time and I felt like I was always a good sport about it.

I’ve written from time to time about one of my best friends, Freddie Quijas, and the small burger shop he owns in Porterville, Calif. One time, I got Jason Baker, another friend of ours, to play a prank on Freddie’s brother, Joe, who sadly died almost three years ago.

In his best voice impersonating the guy in the Freedom Rock commercial (“Is that Freedom Rock? Well turn it up man,” remember that?) Jason posed as a customer calling the shop and Joe answered. Joe was a lot more patient than I expected as he patiently dealt with Jason. At one point Jason had Joe recite the entire menu and then had him recite the entire menu again after saying “Could you repeat that, I didn’t get that.”

The conversation went on for about four minutes and toward the end, Jason asked Joe “What’s pastrami?” in his best Freedom Rock guy voice to which Joe replied in a frustrated tone “I can’t explain it to you!” Joe finally realized he had been had and was a good sport about it.

I’m also impressed with whomever came up with the idea to bring Tahoe Tessie’s cousin down from Lake Tahoe and have it reside apparently with its family in what really amounts to a large puddle of water off of Roop near the post office. And I’m really impressed with the fact they didn’t wait until April Fools’ Day to do it.

For those of you not familiar with Tahoe Tessie, it’s basically Lake Tahoe’s version of the Loch Ness Monster.

So a good prank is valuable to me. It’s Fool’s Gold.

— Charles Whisnand