Playing Card Prank
April 30, 2008
Not long ago, in early April, the Shafer family made a special trip from our temperate but often wet Puget Sound home down to the Deep South. No, not Alabama; this trip was to very southern California. So southern, in fact, that we could see Mexico from our hotel room. We took a trip to Imperial California, departing low 50s for mid 90s and above. This was all to witness the wedding of our cousin Jonathan Dale to his sweetheart Nora Guerrero.
The trip was fortunately uneventful. We arrived on April 2, and the wedding was on April 5. During that time, we were able to meet with family and relax a bit. The wedding itself was beautiful, and the reception that followed was impressive both in scale and quality.
I think it was just prior to the ceremony, maybe by an hour or two, when I found myself in the back of the church in an entryway along with Sharalyn, her brother Seth, and his wife Alyce. I forget who, but probably Seth, started asking about what prank we were going to pull on the couple. Quickly the traditional ideas were tossed about, “decorating” their car, or removing all the wrappers from canned foods. None of these things seemed particularly interesting. So I started asking about what things Nora and Jonathan liked, what they enjoyed, there shared interests. Among the many activities listed, someone commented about how the two enjoyed playing cards. And thus was my inspiration for the prank that followed.
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Following the reception, several of Jonathan’s family helped pack up the wedding presents and transport them to Jonathan and Nora’s new home while the couple left town on their honeymoon. While we were moving the presents inside, someone noticed a handful of folks across the street eying our progress with much interest, and that set off a few alarm bells. Some of the family were worried about the security of the house while Jonathan and Nora were away.
So Sharalyn and I volunteered to stay at the house overnight. We had packed light for the trip, so moving from the hotel to the house was pretty easy. That evening after we had settled in, I began running some mental calculations for the following day.
After church on Sunday, April 6, many of “the cousins” (those among the second-generation descended from LeRoy and Mary Jackson) congregated at the senior Dale house for lunch. Following a relaxing and enjoyable time, we each slowly migrated to the junior Dale house to begin “Operation Card Carpet”.
Those eventually present (and so culpable for the deed) were: Tommy and his wife Rachel, Alyson, Bethany and her boyfriend Taylor, Joshua and his fiancée Lisa, Nate, Jocelyn, Xander, Sharalyn, and myself. We began by constructing semi-square sheets of playing cards, 8 cards across and 5 cards tall. Each of us had a unique way to form these squares, but most would arrange the cards on the floor and carefully tape the edges together.
Once several of these sheets were formed, we split into several teams, some continuing to make sheets, others hanging sheets on the walls with plasti-tack, and still others cutting and tacking individual cards along the edges and around corners.
Taylor in particular exhibited great card cutting skill and tacking attention to detail as he became responsible for the expert card trim along several corners and archways.
About half-way through the tacking, Joshua came up with a fantastic additional twist. Both Jonathan and Nora love the San Diego Chargers. So he began with help from a few others a large heart shape constructed from blue and yellow Uno cards.
As day turned to night and night turned to really, really night, the room slowly came into shape. Someone rented a movie, and we all watched and relaxed, our creation wrapped around us as we consumed pop, pizza, and dessert.
The following morning, as the early sun burst into the room, Sharalyn captured our team’s success on film (well, digital at least) for posterity.
