It wasn’t all bad, but it wasn’t all good. Sometimes you just have to find the humor in this wretched thing called life.

The Day We Pranked Michael “One-Leg” Todd. This was an essay I wrote for my English class. I didn’t want to spill the beans on all the bad stuff, so I pretended Michael was a good guy. He was fun, but he also dealt drugs, I think he beat his wife too.. so not so great. Some of this was fictional (like remembering the pranks he pulled) But we really did pull off this prank of trying to sell his leg. By the way I got an A on this.

When I was a nine-year-old little girl, my mother had a friend named Michael Todd. Michael had dark curly brown hair, tanned skin, and hazel eyes. Eyes that were kind, sincere and had a mischievous twinkle to them right before he would tell a joke or play a prank. Michael was a prankster, and he did it often. I have many memories of his antics, like the time he hid my mother’s shoes then helped her look for fifteen minutes before finally letting her in on his secret, or when he invited us to dinner and made the mashed potatoes with sugar instead of salt, I’ll also never forget the time he took my sister and me to the drive-in movies to see the zombie thriller Dawn of the Deadand snuck up behind us, as we were lying on a blanket beside the car, and scared us by grabbing our feet. His pranks were epic and, we loved them.

There is one more thing about Michael’s appearance that is worth noting. He only had one leg. When Michael was younger, he was in a motorcycle accident, and his leg was injured so severely that the doctors could not repair it, so they had to remove it. He never let this slow him down, and I am sure he impacted many people’s lives because of his positive attitude. He never complained about losing his leg, but it was clear that the prosthetic he had was bothersome as he would usually remove it when he got to our house. My sister and I had a nickname for him; we called him Michael “One-Leg” Todd. The first time we called him this, he laughed so hard that the soda he was drinking spewed right out of his nose and told us that it was so funny and cute that two nine-year-old girls came up with this nickname, and he, in turn, gave us the nickname of “Twinkies” because we are identical twins.

One day, my sister and I decided to play a prank, of our own, on Michael. We decided to sneak into the house and stealhis prosthetic leg. As we walked into the house and started looking around, we heard Michael and my mother talking in the kitchen, so we headed to the living room. That’s when we saw it, leaning right up against the old brown recliner. We quietly picked up his leg and tiptoed out of the house, and sat on the front lawn with it. We had no idea what we would do next, but we felt proud to accomplish this feat. As people started walking by us and asking questions like “well, what do you have there, young ladies?” and “does the owner of that leg know you have it?” it dawned on us, we could sell his leg. So, my sister went back into the house while I stayed outside with Michael’s leg to make sure no one steals it. She got an ink pen, tape, and a piece of paper. My sister wrote $5.00 on the paper, and we taped it to the leg; we laughed and laughed. We thought this was so funny. We received many reactions from those passing by, ranging from sheer disgust or chastisement but most laughed in hystericsas they passed by. A few people even tried to barter with us by offering less than the “asking price”. We had been outside for a half-hour or so when we heard Michael’s booming voice “Twinkies”! Scared but still highly amused with ourselves, we giggled and said, “We’re out here”. As he came over to where we were, he all of a sudden burst into uncontrolled laughter; he could not believe what we were doing. When he stopped laughing, he asked for his leg back, but we told him he would have to buy it from us; we couldn’t give such a valuable treasure away. He said, “you drive a hard bargain, twinkies”, and so he paid us each $5.00, and we happily gave him his leg back.

Whenever I think of the day we successfully “pulled a prank” on Michael “One-Leg” Todd, it brings a big smile to my face. He was a significant influence on my life and taught me how to stay positive even in adversity.

#pranksters, #trauma, #princess, #twins, #childhoodtrauma, #overcomingtrauma, #mystory