Practical jokes are usually funny but most of the time only for the joker and his friends.
Rarely do they tickle the poor unsuspecting recipient.
I can tell you about one practical joke that was different.
My old business partner (we will call him "Joe') had in his Juneau real estate office a mount of a coiled rattlesnake that was ready to strike.
It had its mouth open with fangs exposed - truly a menacing sight.
Joe enjoyed telling visitors about the creature's past history.
It seems that years ago when he lived in Florida he had found the venomous creature in his backyard.
The family's pet dog had given birth to a litter of nine, but her pups kept disappearing during the night.
The culprit was finally discovered sleeping in Joe's tool shed.
It had two big lumps in its body when Joe found it.
A local taxidermist captured it for him, took it to his shop in a gunny sack, and later killed it by drowning it in a rain barrel.
When Joe and his family moved to Alaska, the mounted rattler came with them.
Now comes the practical joke part: Next to the mount Joe placed an envelope and on its front were printed (in large caps) the words "SNAKE FANGS - HANDLE WITH CARE.
" When asked by the curious, Joe would explain that the fangs in the mount were plastic whereas the real ones had been saved and were there in the envelope.
He also assured the less than wary dupe that these real fangs were now harmless because the venom had long ago evaporated.
Once the mark picked up the envelope and peeked inside he would get one terrible surprise.
A metal washer twisted many times within a rubber band would be released in the partially open envelope - sounding just like a ready to attack rattler.
It was always a funny scene for everyone who was in on the joke to see the panic filled displays of those taken in by Joe's little trick.
I remember one terrified woman running by my desk heading for the front door of the office.
She was there to sign an earnest money agreement and to make an offer on a house.
She refused to ever again enter our office.
Now that I think of the incident again, she didn't even see the envelope nor did she hear the story of the fangs.
Just seeing the coiled snake scared her to death.
Luckily, she did still sign the document.
She affixed her signature to the agreement on the hood of her car and the sale did go through.
Finally, some time later, Joe decided that, perhaps, the mount should not be on display.
But, it took a little bit of payback to occur first.
One enterprising victim decided to get even.
He brought "Old Uncle Ezra" into Joe's office to show him the snake.
Now, anyone in his right mind could easily tell that a not too healthy old man should never be subjected to panic and fear, especially if he had a heart condition.
Well, Ezra played his part perfectly - when the envelope went off in Ezra's hands he clutched at his heart and collapsed at the feet of Joe's desk.
Now, Joe became the "panic'ee.
" Being in on the joke, I played my little part by yelling, "Joe, give him mouth to mouth - I'll call an ambulance.
" When Joe knelt down and his face neared Ezra's the latter opened his eyes and calmly said, "God, Joe, you sure have bad breath!" It was pandemonium and raucous laughter for quite a while after that.
Joe didn't laugh as heartily as the rest of us - he knew he'd been had.
Just another one of those remembrances that stays with you forever.