Dear stales: Your story about jokes at formal family feasts reminded me of prank my father played on his mother one April first. The year before Grandmother had given him an elaborate cut glass tumbler which she had gotten at a Boston store, Daddy & Jacks, which specialized in items for playing tricks. The goblet had one of the flower leaves cut into the glass that would not leak when tumbler was sitting on table, but would leak a lot onto your necktie when you took a drink. When his tie got wet, my father did not say a word. But the next year when Grandmother came, when she sat down, there was a loud, prolonged rude noise, sounding very much as though she had passed a very large amount of flatus. She got very red.
My father had been to Daddy & Jacks, and bought a chair cushion which concealed a large airbag connected to a Bronx cheer razzer.