Impractical Jokes Read Free Page A

fact that when dissolved, it turned water an unnerving, all-too-familiar yellow.
    So on day five of his fledgling pharmacy’s existence, Dad was up at the crack of dawn to head into work. As he raised the shutters on the shop and waved at the fruiterer across the road, the fruiterer checked his watch and wondered why the chemist was in so early. And it was particularly early. The other shops were a long way from opening and it would be a while yet before the wonderful world of retail groaned into life for another day. But that suited Dad just fine. He wanted a clear hour to himself in the shop before Peter arrived.
    Closing the shutters behind him, Dad stopped by one of the shelves before heading to the dispensary. He then meticulously dissolved a tropical Berocca in a pregnancy test sample jar, labelled it with a fake name and added it to the box of samples waiting to be sent for testing.
    This took longer than you would think. You see, the sample jars themselves were quite small and to dissolve a whole Berocca resulted in a sample so yellow it would be reasonable to assume that a large, radioactive asparagus addict with a kidney problem had decided to ignore her many health concerns and try for children. As such, Dad spent half an hour trying different Berocca to water ratios, searching for the perfect yellow. This was made more complicated by the effervescent nature of the solution, which made many of the early attempts foam out of the jar, leaving an altogether too fizzy sample. In the end, after much trial and error, a third of a tablet was dissolved in one quarter of a sample jar of water, and allowed to stand for five minutes before being diluted with water. Was the result convincing? It was, quite literally, a piece of piss.
    Five minutes after achieving the perfect formula, Dad greeted Peter with a casual ‘morning’, not even looking up from his newspaper.
    â€˜You’re in early.’
    â€˜Yeah. I got a good run of traffic.’
    â€˜Half your luck.’
    At the end of the day, Dad volunteered to process the pregnancy tests. While Peter was filing scripts and settling up the till, Dad went through the jars one by one, checking the paperwork and placing them in the courier carton. When Dad got to his jar, and he was sure Peter was watching, he opened the lid and drank it. Then, after an almost imperceptible smack of the lips, he put the lid back on, put the jar back in the box, and continued sorting the samples. Peter’s jaw hit the floor. He barely knew my dad; no doubt he was wondering who the hell he had gone into business with.
    Now, obviously there was quite a lot of risk involved in this prank. First, it was imperative that Dad get the right sample. Sure he had picked the name and labelled the jar himself, but it could all have gone wrong. There was always the chance that someone with the same name had put in a sample while Dad was out on his lunchbreak. Dad had given this some serious consideration, but figured the chances of a Mrs Picknelli coming in at that particular time on that particular day were very slim. But the other big risk was that Peter would overreact and dissolve the partnership like so many practice Beroccas.
    Thankfully neither of these things happened. The sample tasted as tropical as it should and Peter somehow managed to keep his genuine, deep-seated concerns to himself. The only perceptible change in Peter’s behaviour was that he insisted that Dad go home early. The reason he cited was that Dad had been in so early, but deep down it was because he was terrified at the thought of what Dad might get up to if left in the store unattended.
    Considering that Peter was doubtless having grave concerns for the partnership, you might like to think my dad would have let him off the hook and broken the tension with a punch line. Perhaps after sipping the sample, he could have licked his lips and given a little burp and said, ‘Yep, definitely pregnant.’ But