(75) 'To Tease Or Not To Tease'

[Ken]

Miss Blower, the English teacher at my school, was once teaching Shakespeare to my class.  When she was half way through the lesson she said, "Do any of you have any questions you'd like to ask?"  I can recall her look of surprised delight when the school hard case, Kenny Maynard, raised his fifteen year old hand. "Yes Kenny," she said, only to have her anticipation dashed when he teasingly asked, "How long is this crap going to last."  The whole class exploded with laughter but I noticed the expression on poor Miss Blower's face.  That form of teasing was cruel, for I could see it had hurt our teacher.  But most teasing I have always enjoyed, especially the sort that flourished in the Tuffs family throughout, and beyond, my growing up years.  Below I tell of some of the teasing's dished out to me and of how revenge was oh so sweet.

In those early years I was a rich source of easy laughter for my older siblings.  I still remember when my sister Phyl told me to beware of the ghost of our staircase.  She would stand at the top of those stairs, holding my hand and looking alarmed, and we would both hear the footsteps slowly ascending.  I could hear something coming, thump, thump, thump, as it climbed the stairs, but there was nothing to be seen. As the footsteps drew closer to us, Phyl would feign huge fear and would suddenly shout RUN.  She would see me race to the safety of my bedroom where I'd slam the door and sit tightly against it, ensuring I kept out the invisible monster that been coming to get me.  This would happen often and it wasn't until I was much older that I discovered Phyl had hidden Gordon in our cupboard under the stairs.  His job was to hammer on each of the stairs slowly, giving me the impression of a ghost climbing them.  Once he had heard the terrified me slam my bedroom door, he and Phyl no doubt laughed endlessly at their successful tease of a six year old.

I have always loved my sister Phyl and I wonder if she remembers the above tease.  I doubt if she can recall how she'd also enjoy annoying me if she found me reading in bed.  When Phyl was seventeen, I was approaching the age of age ten and I obviously went to bed earlier than her.  We had no bedside table lamps in my room and I would have to read my book or comic by the main ceiling light.  Phyl would find great delight in walking past my door and leaving me in darkness after switching off the only light.  No sooner had I got up to turn it on, off it would go again as soon as I had returned to bed.  This was a regular occurrence but sometimes it got worse.  Imagine me in bed enjoying my latest Superman comic. Alls well in my world until I suddenly find my comic knocked out of my hands by a soggy wet flannel, expertly thrown by my annoying big sister.  Of course I would eventually retaliate and then I'd be in trouble with dad as his TV was interrupted by my shouts and Phyl's laughter.  Phyllis Tuffs, Supertease, Strikes Again!

Phyl and Gordon weren't alone in teasing me.  Bob could be a terror too.  One of his favourite teases was when the family played a game called, Escalado, a brilliant table top horse racing game.  In it six little horses, made of lead, would race along a five foot racecourse.  You can see it in action on YouTube to see how it works.  With our set, Bob would take the trouble to tie some very thin, almost invisible, fishing line to the back leg of my horse.  When the race was on and if it ever looked like my horse may win, Bob would always tug gently on the nylon to ensure it didn't.  The whole family used to enjoy my frustration but I swear I didn't notice that nylon for years.  When I did eventually see it I got upset at being tricked, and Bob still delights, some sixty years later, on telling what happened next.  He tells how he apologised to me and told me to shake hands like a man.  When I did so he squeezed it hard enough to hurt and I also felt something cold, squidgy and moist crushed into my small hand.  Apparently I yelled and when he let go I found a cooked and squashed Brussel sprout and Bob insists I immediately burst into tears.  That story has been told regularly around my old oak table and it always raises a great big laugh from my older brothers!

Len's tease was perhaps the worst of all that the young me had to endure.  At the time they began he and Bob were sharing a double bed in what I called the middle bedroom.  Wally's bed was also in that room as, I presume, was Gordon's,  I was still sleeping in a small bed in the main bedroom, which was where Mum and Dad slept .  Looking back, it's hard to work out where everyone did sleep in the years proceeding 1953, which was when both Wally and Violet got married?  Before that, Violet, Dot and Phyl, must have for a time all shared the small front bedroom.  We had a bed settee in the downstairs front room that we used for visitors but I have no recollection of it ever being used as a permanent bedroom for one of the family.  

Getting back to Lens tease.  I realise this must have occurred on a Saturday morning when Wally had left for work for he would never have allowed it.  Len called to me and asked if I wanted him to read me a story, I expect he and Bob were in collusion on his dastardly plan.  Soon the delighted and young me was snuggled into bed between my two big brothers and no doubt the story telling commenced as promised. But remember this was on a Saturday, which had obviously followed their Friday evening session at the village pub.  That meant it was an absolute certainty that both of them would need to break wind quite often. When Len decided the aroma was sufficiently rank, he and Bob lifted the covers and pushed the poor and unsuspecting me under them.  That day I heard for the first the expression, A Dutch Oven, and it's an experience I'll never forget.  Other Saturdays followed when this terrible duo would give false promises of, "Just a story little brother," to win my trust.  But before long I was once again to suffer the fowl darkness of a Dutch Oven, as overhead I could hear the roars of laughter of my horrible older siblings!

The years passed and it became hard to get anything over on me.  In the tease or joke sense, I'd become the new King.  I remember on one occasion when Len had come down to our house from his own home and Bob and Gordon were showing him something in our lock up garden shed. The shed was of a good size with a window at each end to provide sufficient light but these were windows that could not be opened.  I recall joining my elder brothers in the shed and as I removed my bicycle I dropped and surreptitiously crushed four stink bombs with my feet.  I then rapidly departed the shed and locked the door as I did so. Oh the pleasure of seeing their desperate faces.  I had waited years for this moment and I ignored their demands to be released as, grinning from ear to ear, I watched them through the shed windows.  This time it was me that was roaring with laughter for the wheel had at last turned.  With one final victorious grin I left them to endure the fowl smells of that shed and it's putrid stench of rotten eggs. Still ignoring their angry expressions and their shouted threats, I rode my bike into a sweet smelling sunset.  My revenge for the Dutch Oven torture of my younger days had at last been achieved and it felt oh so very good!

The ways I used to tease some of my nieces, nephews and my own children, I will tell of in a future Cosy story.  Until then I will finish with something my daughter said to me shortly after she gave birth to her own daughter.  "When Emma gets older, Dadda, will you promise to tease her just like you teased me and Morgan."  I have, to the best of my ability, granted her wish with teases like this.  Using my limited magic trick abilities, I once asked Emma if she'd like an onion, when she declined, I offered one to everyone else in the room.  They all took one out of the bulging bag I held, and they each proceeded to munch away on some delicious chocolates.  "They're not onions," said the young and disappointed Emma, and we all assured her they were.  "I like onions," said Emma, changing her mind, and I asked her if she'd like the whole bag. "Yes please Grandad," came her instant and eager reply, and so I handed it to her.  Obviously Emma wasn't exactly delighted when she  discovered the bag was actually full of ......... ONIONS!  

Since then I have milked the onion joke dry, to a point when she is sick of it.  This Christmas as Emma opened up her presents, fearing the contents may be shallots or pickled onions or the such like, she handed me a small gift.  I half expected it to be an onion but it was in fact a bag of Twiglets, which she knew I liked.  Some ten minutes later, and feeling a little peckish, I opened them and began to munch away, only to find that they were real twigs.  She had seen them while out walking and, thinking how much like Grandads favourites they looked, she'd picked some up.  Emptying and eating a real bag of the delicious snack, she'd refilled it with her lookalike twigs and after carefully resealing the packet she was ready.  To her delight, and everyone else's amusement, I had been completely taken in and the scene was captured for all time on Kathryn's camcorder.  I'm still the King of the tease, but perhaps my days are numbered!  

 

 

[Ken]

'To tease or not to tease, that is the question,' and the answer is a resounding Yes!  This tale tells of the sort of teasing I once had to endure and of how it help mould me into what I am today. It also tells how an usurper may soon shorten my long reign.