Mystery Gifts…

About a month ago, one of my buddies approached me asking if I wanted to go in on buying used bowling pins from a bowling alley. He and a group of folks were going to pick up a truck load. I said, “Sure, I’ll take twenty.” I don’t know why I did that, I have more than enough useless crap as it is, but I thought, “Everybody needs to have their own bowling pins.”

I really didn’t know what I was going to do with them, but I knew I’d find a use. They were only a buck a piece anyway. Perhaps lawn bowling will be the new craze!

Two weeks go by and I haven’t unloaded them from the back of my Expedition. They are in a cargo net so every time I hit a speed bump, it sounds like somebody hit a strike. A few have jumped out of the net so they are rolling around the back of the truck. So, be sure to dodge when I take a sharp corner!

What the hell am I going to do with these? The guy that asked me if I wanted in on the deal bought his for target practice, but I don’t own a gun. So I got to thinking, Gifts?

One of my friends owns a restaurant with a sports theme so I gave him one. It’s now sitting on the shelf next to a UofW helmet. OK, it fits the ambiance there, but let’s be honest, who wants a beat to shit bowling pin as a gift? I gotta come up with a new idea.

Hmmm…? What to do with them?

Got it! Random Stealth gifts! Give them to people you know just buy leaving them on the porch and walking away.

I tested it first on my kids. Just drove buy their house, made sure nobody was home, and left a bowling pin in the middle of the front porch and drove away.

I didn’t say anything for a few weeks. I couldn’t stand that that nobody had brought it up!

“Lexie, what do you know about a bowling ball pin?”

Her eyes lit up and she grinned, she got it.

That next day, when I got home from work, I had a piece of broken cement curb (about 3 feet long – rebar too!) leaning against my front door and a chocolate pudding cup right next to it.

It startled me! Then I understood. What have I started?

I didn’t get on it quick enough, a few day later, I walked out the front door, and looking me right in the face was a garage broom (3-ft wide) stuck in the top of a roadway cone. Another start – Thanks Lexie.

The longest time I perpetrated something like this without letting it out of the bag is my current manger. I have been putting ant stickers on his office doors and windows for years – even when he moved offices! On our last office move I stopped it an admitted it to him, because a constant unknowing prank seemed a little to stalkersish to me – especially since it gone on for so long. After the admission, he said he had no idea it was me and that I should have kept it up! Damn!

You’re probably wondering, “Why am I spending any time or effort on something so pointless?” Here’s why, if I can find a way to startle, surprise, and the put a grin on someone’s face because they realize someone went out of their way to make them feel special all in under a second – it’s totally worth it. Give it a shot!