Cantankerously Yours
It’s All Mulroy’s Fault
By Wendell Abern
Dear Pranksters,
No one in my family ever met Mulroy. To this day, none of them realizes how much he affected their lives.
Throughout the Chicago advertising agency community of the 60s, Mulroy enjoyed a reputation as the most creative practical joker in the city.
I had been working for three months as a green, naive copywriter, when I became a victim of one of Mulroy’s pranks.
One day, Jim – the art director partnered with me – asked me to join him and his old friend, Mulroy, for lunch.
“He’s the best art director in the city,” Jim said, “and the biggest practical joker in the country.”
“Does Mulroy have a first name?”
“Everyone calls him Mulroy. He hates his first name.”
“What I hate are practical jokes.”
“I wouldn’t mention that to Mulroy. Last guy who told him that had to try explaining to his management why Uno’s had delivered six dozen large sausage pizzas to the agency.”
“Wonderful. Can’t wait to meet him.”
Heeding his warning, I did not utter three sentences at lunch.
When we returned to the agency, Jim invited Mulroy up to his office.
I rode the elevator with them up to the sixteenth floor. My office was on the seventeenth. The elevator was still packed with people when Jim and Mulroy stepped off. Then, just as the elevator doors were closing, Mulroy turned around and said to me, “By the way, how’d you make out on that sodomy charge?”
A few chuckles, one sneer and many stone faces as I stammered about Mulroy being a big practical joker.
Now, I would never pull such a stunt on anyone. However, a few years later, after hearing of many other Mulroy pranks, I decided it might be fun to perpetrate a few Mulroyisms on my own family. But all in good fun, of course.
Ma.
A close friend in my monthly poker game had just been named one of the top 100 executives in the country. Big party. Big celebration.
Entire poker crew was there, along with wives, kids, parents and sundry friends. My mother, who had come to town for her annual visit, was invited also.
After an hour or so of socializing, I heard a loud voice, shouting, “Where’s that no-good son o’ mine, I’m ‘onna kill ‘im!”
My brother, standing next to me, recognized ma’s ire as soon as I did, and started laughing. “Over here, ma!” he yelled. Sure. The innocent one. He knew he hadn’t done anything.
Ma came barreling through the crowd like a road plow, all five foot-one of her ready for battle. If she had been a cartoon, smoke would have been shooting out of her ears.
“I’m ‘onna kill ‘im!” she shouted.
“What’d he do this time, ma?” my brother asked, still laughing.
Reaching us she said, “Your darling little brother has been telling everyone I’m hard of hearing! They’re all shouting at me! I didn’t understand why all these people were so loud and obnoxious until a woman started working her way around me and said, ‘Maybe you can hear better in your left ear.’”
I was going to explain it was all Mulroy’s fault, but I knew ma wouldn’t understand. Never heard the end of that one.
My brother.
We had a bet: who could lose the most weight in two months. We went to a restaurant with three other couples. My brother said, “I’m having whatever you’re having.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’m having the lasagna with a side order of two Italian Sausages and the tiramisu for dessert.”
“But we’re on a diet,” he said.
“C’mon. It’s only one night.”
Later, after we’d all ordered, I slipped away – allegedly to go to the bathroom – and gave a few dollars to our waiter. As pre-arranged, he brought everyone else’s meal first. Then he set down my brother’s plate, laden with a two-inch high lasagna and surrounded by two thick hunks of Italian sausage … followed by my plate, which contained three peas and
a carrot.
“What the hell is that?” my brother asked.
“My dinner. We’re on a diet, remember?”
“I’m ‘onna kill ‘im!” my brother said. Everyone laughed.
But my brother knew me well. He started clinking his glass with his spoon, drawing everyone’s attention.
“Pay no attention to my brother’s diet plate,” he said. “When he gets home, he’ll eat two big salami sandwiches.”
He was wrong. I ate three.
Aunt Ruth.
My mother lived in Minneapolis. Aunt Ruth (her sister) in Chicago. Each year, they exchanged two-week visits to each other.
One year, I was the only one in the family available to drive Aunt Ruth to the airport for her annual visit to my mom. They were both around 80 at the time, both with severe arthritis.
I picked up Aunt Ruth, drove to O’Hare and, because she could hardly walk, contracted for a wheelchair to get her onto the plane.
They permitted us down the jetway first, and the flight attendant helped me settle Aunt Ruth into her seat. Then I drew the attendant aside.
“A word of caution,” I said. “Try not to let my Aunt Ruth see the captain or co-captain.”
The flight attended chuckled.
“What are you telling her?” Aunt Ruth yelled from her seat.
Whispering, I continued, “She sees a man in uniform, she goes bananas.”
“Don’t listen to a word he says!” Aunt Ruth shouted.
“Last time she flew, she slipped the captain a note with her phone number, her address and her bra size.”
The flight attendant laughed. “I’ll make sure to protect the pilots,”
she said.
I turned to Aunt Ruth. “I was just telling her to get you a wheelchair when you arrive.”
“What’d he tell you?” she asked the flight attendant, who could not stop laughing.
“He just asked me to take good care of you,” she said.
“Yeah, sure. I’m ‘onna kill ‘im!”
I kissed her good-bye, and winking at the flight attendant, said, “Aunt Ruth, if a soldier or sailor happens to sit down next to you, keep your hands to yourself.”
The flight attendant turned her back to hide her giggles.
* * *
Nowadays, I think … at one time or another, everyone in my family threatened to kill me. Not one of them knew Mulroy even existed. And that it was all his fault.
Cantankerously Yours,
Wendell Abern
Wendell Abern can be reached at dendyabern@comcast.net.
