My Evil Streak

There is a practical joker inside me. As I was explaining a few of the jokes I’ve played on people to a friend today, he laughed and said he didn’t know I had an evil streak inside me. Well I have, but rest assured it’s rare. I only think up good ones about every two years or so.

The first one I played was on Peter, a friend of mine who chartered the Kiwi Cruiser boat up in the Bay of Islands, a 50 foot Kauri Launch. At the time, I was going out with a guy called Steve, who owned a cake making company. Eight of us deaf girls decided on an all girl fishing/diving weekend on Peter’s boat for the fun of it. I really wanted to play a joke on Peter, so asked Steve if he would professionally ice a square piece of sponge rubber, to which he so kindly obliged. It looked fantastic, and had the words ‘For Peter – You Can’t Have Your Cake AND Eat It Too’. (it was a big piece of sponge rubber!)

The weekend started brilliantly – good weather – a little on the cold side being midwinter. Peter had us up bright and early every morning catching live bait, then onto the fishing. We caught lots of fish and several of the ‘team’ also dived and got us crayfish. Of course we brought lots of food onto the boat thinking we might not catch anything so in the evenings we had sumptuous feasts of lasagne, casseroles, and fresh fish. I swear the boat was sitting 6 inches deeper I the water at the end of the trip with us all on board!! My catch of the weekend was a Grand Daddy Hapuka.

We had lots of fun, talked, sat in the winter sun, fished and relaxed. Some even braved the cold water for a morning swim. I was much more sensible than that! Day two saw us out at the Hole in the Rock, a world famous icon for New Zealand. The fish were really jumping. Peter decided to take us down the coast a bit in the hope we could swim with dolphins. As we were going down the coast, we hit a rock. It was a flat rock, which beached the boat completely, surf went down and boat was high and dry on top of this rock, rocking from side to side. I honestly thought we were going to go over, but miraculously we didn’t. Surf came back up and washed us off the rock. One of our ‘team’ thought we were going to sink so dived overboard. I had my cochlear implant and there was no way I was going to dive overboard until the very last minute, and only if I had to! Peter got into his dive gear and checked the boat for damage, and apart from a tiny bit of wood that was ‘planed’ off at the front, there was no damage, and no holes. So after everyone calmed down we carried on down the coast.

‘Dolphins’ Peter called out so we all donned bathing suits and those that had them, wetsuits. We waited until the boat slowed, and we all about to go in when Peter called a halt. They weren’t dolphins but Orcas – three of them, one a baby. We watched them swim away, but we still dived overboard and went swimming anyway. We swam over to a cliff that had a channel going through the other side and body surfed through that for half an hour. I had no wetsuit so I swam back to the boat first as it was freezing. It was midwinter – and only about 10C! The water was warmer than the outside temperature, but it was still cold.

We were all warming up with coffee after this swim, and heading back to Paihia so I brought out the ‘cake’. Peter was like a kid – so excited that someone had made this cake for him. He said no one had ever done this before. I felt soooo guilty. The funny thing was that he used his fishing knife which is extremely sharp, so sharp that in fact it cut through the sponge rubber just like a piece of cake, so until he picked up a piece of cake, he thought it was real! We ate icing with our coffee and had a good laugh, but next time I play this kind of joke, I will make sure I have a real cake as a backup!!

Back on land we divvied up the fish, and I was eating fresh crayfish for breakfast every morning for a week, and beautiful fresh fish fillets for dinner!

A few months later us girls were once again on Peter’s boat on a Deaf Club outing, and in advance made up white t-shirts with ‘Peter’s Hole in the Boat Cruise’ all over them (instead of hole in the rock).

Poor Peter, I don’t think he’s ever recovered from those trips. I saw him 2 years ago for the first time in ages. I was on the wharf waiting to be picked up for his 24 hour Rock the Boat cruise. He didn’t know I was part of the group. When he finally caught sight of me he said ‘oohhh nooooooo!’ I think I’ll surprise him again soon! I’m in need of lots of good laughs!

I'll be posting up several practical jokes I've played over the next few days, as I have one planned to play on my doctor after my Cochlear Implant operation. I'll let you know the details later!