Quote:
Originally Posted by realbeaux
Great, funny story. Thanks for the link.
After reading it, I was reminded of a similar- tho non-poker related incident- of "the perverse leading the gullible."
When I was about 5 or 6, my Mom and Dad decided that it would be nice to take us kids to spend Christmas with my maternal grandmother. My sister was quite young since she's four years my junior, but my brother is only a year younger than me and was widely regarded as the more mischevious child. We arrived in time for a Christmas Eve supper after which my Grandmother insisted that we open the gift she had for each of us. My brother was delighted with his new cowboy boots and prolly didn't even notice that he looked rather silly because the long, sharp toe of the damn things made him look like he was wearing pixie shoes. He even put them on as soon as we awoke Christmas morning and opened the rest of his gifts wearing his pajamas and those cowboy boots.
Christmas dinner was a very big deal to my Momma's family. My Grandmother had seven brothers and sisters, six of whom lived close-by, and all of whom attended this banquet with their families. This included two of my great uncles. Uncle Conn was the eldest of the generation and, not surprisingly, the most reserved and thoughtful. My Uncle Buck, whom we adored, was always plying us with unexpected little gifts, never failed to join us in a "wrestlin' match" or provide some sort of kid-friendly entertainment that we found enormously funny. He was also the family prankster.
As you can likely imagine, there's a
lot of food served at this particular meal and my Uncle Conn wasn't a bit shy about helping himself until fully satiated. He then retired to the La-Z-Boy recliner in the living room, in which he invariably fell asleep within ten minutes despite the cacophony and goings-on of Christmas afternoon.
I'm not sure if it was Uncle Conn's perceived right of entitlement to that La-Z-Boy or his loud snoring that rankled my Uncle Buck that day, but I do know that he motioned for my brother to join him on the couch. Uncle Buck whispered something that seemingly surprised my brother because I remember him shaking his head "no" and blurting out, "No way," to which Uncle Buck said, "Shhhhhhhhh." After another minute or two, Uncle Buck kinda pushed him off the couch and quietly said, "Go ahead."
My brother walked over to the reposing Uncle Conn, stood right in front of him, looked back at Uncle Buck and pointed at Uncle Conn's right leg. Uncle Buck gave him a vigorous head nod in the affirmative.
I'll never forget what happened next.
My brother delivered a vicious kick and planted the toe of that boot in the center of Uncle Conn's shin.
Needless to say, all Hell broke loose. Uncle Conn almost toppled over 'cause he was grabbing his shin and tryin' to stand up at the same time. He was also near-apoplectic with rage and spouting invectives that were very uncharacteristic of him. My brother stood there, bewildered and scared shitless, and looked like he was either gonna cry or pee his pants. Uncle Buck was laughing so hard I momentarily thought he was crying. When the proverbial dust settled- which happened only after the women-folk came bursting into the living room demanding an explanation for the uproar- Uncle Buck "fessed-up."
My Grandmother: "Buck, did you put that child up to doin' that?"
Buck: "Well, sorta."
My Grandmother: "You either you did or you didn't. What did you tell him?"
Buck (stalling): "I told him that Conn got his leg shot off during the war and that it was replaced with a wooden leg. I don't think he believed me so I told him to go over there and kick it as hard as he could because he won't even feel it. I'll be damned if he didn't do just that."