2022/2023
Collection 18

The Not-So-Funny Prank

c. 1955; Brentwood, Missouri, USA

My gam was nearly ten years old in 1955 when her parents, her aunt, and her uncle went out of town for the day to visit her grandmother. They left Gam with her two older sisters and her cousin Mary Anne. Her parents had also arranged for their longtime adult babysitter, Patsy Ruth, to come over. The older girls were told to help Patsy Ruth watch Gam’s four younger siblings.

Gam lived in Brentwood, Missouri, in a spacious, but charming, house. It was always full of activity with her parents and the seven kids living under one roof. Her cousins visited often from their homes nearby. Gam’s parents always told her and her sisters, “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do if we were here” and “Don’t follow Mary Anne!” Cousin Mary Anne was adventuresome and fun but tended to come up with ideas that were not always well thought out.

The four girls, led by Mary Anne, came up with a wonderful plan for a practical joke on Patsy Ruth, who was their favorite babysitter and loved them very much. They knew that Patsy Ruth loved to buy tickets for the Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstake (possibly the biggest lottery in the world at the time). Her dream would be to win it, and the girls thought it would be a fun idea to make her think she had won the grand prize.

The girls took a check from their parents’ checkbook and made it out to Patsy Ruth for thousands of dollars and then wrote her a letter from the address of the Irish Sweepstake congratulating her for being a big winner. Patsy Ruth didn’t fall for it.

Then Cousin Mary Anne had a brilliant idea — to call her friend whose grandfather had a reputation as a jokester, to see if he would be willing to help out. Without much need for convincing, Mr. Osterholt called the house to verify that Patsy Ruth had truly won.

When the phone at the Tlapek house rang, Patsy Ruth answered, and a man with an Irish accent asked for Patsy. “Hi, I am calling from the Office of the Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstake. Patsy, are you standing up or sitting down?” Then he paused and said, “You had better sit down, because you have just won the Irish Sweepstake!”

Patsy Ruth started screaming, jumping up and down, and thanking Jesus. As soon as she got off the phone with the man, she called all her friends and told them how much she was giving to her church and to each of them.

The more people she called, the sicker it made Mary Anne, my gam, and her sisters. The longer it went on, the more scared they got, realizing what they had done. The prank had gone too far. The girls spent the rest of the day trying to convince Patsy Ruth that it was all a joke and wound up getting in big trouble when their parents got home. It was probably the last joke they ever played.

Mackenzie Mullen; Missouri, USA  

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