M Is For Marriage

Sole Mates

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Remember the song "Get me to the church on time" from My Fair Lady? There's this childhood friend of mine, whom I'm still very close to. He's late for everything. Yep, I mean everything. But we were determined that if there was one thing he'd be on time for, it would be his own wedding.

If I cloak this yarn in the necessary anonymity, I'm sure he'll have a restrospective chuckle as well.

He's a very - how shall I put this - meticulous dresser. You know the sort of bloke I mean? Goes in for a shower and comes out about 45 minutes later. Never in a hurry to do anything. Pretty easy-paced and relaxed about life.

So on the day of his wedding, I thought I'd have a bit of fun. Yep, I have to confess, I've always been a bit of a prankster and if you'd like to catch up on what happened to one of my workmates, you'll need to read Name, Prank And Serial Number.

The wedding day dawned (time for a cliche) bright and clear. His tuxedo was freshly pressed. His bow tie was immaculate. The whole outfit waited on the external door of a cupboard. Only the finest threads for this bloke. The label on the tux said Hugo Boss.

He's that sort of guy. Get the picture?

But precisely because he's that sort of guy, I had a great plan ready.

I was going to paint the word "HELP'' on the sole of his left shoe and the word "ME'' on the sole of his right shoe. So that when he knelt down at the altar, the entire congregation would see the fluoro message ``HELP ME''.


Yes, I know all about the sanctity of marriage and the overwhelming need to be respectful in church. But the opportunity was just too good to miss.

When he went in for his shower, I knew I had time on my side. The way I figured it, a bloke who had taken 45 minutes all his life just to get ready for school, was odds-on to take 90 minutes on his wedding day.

Follow my logic?

So as soon as he went in for his shower, I commandeered his shoes. His aunt, a delightful woman, was horrified. She asked if I was going to hide his shoes.

Nope, I chuckled, worse than that.

What could be worse than hiding his shoes, she asked, intrigued.

Er, painting then, I fessed up.

At this point I thought she was going to swoon gracefully before calling bravely for the smelling salts.


I had the paintbrushes handy, I had the paint handy. At this point I thought it would be pertinent to mention that her two eldest sons, both gifted artists as well as ordained Catholic priests, were my fellow conspirators. They had done a contra deal with me and supplied me with the paint and the brushes. And they were laughing in the background, because a) they shared any perceived guilt in the project and b) they knew exactly what I was doing.

I picked up the left shoe and in my neatest, boldest script, I painted HELP on the sole in large, condensed script. I chose the colours carefully. Because the soles of his shoes were dark brown leather, I chose red and yellow paint. As in red and yellow fluoro paint. The way I figured it - taking into consideration my extensive experience in newspaper and magazine design - red and yellow would be highly visible.

I was as proud of my handiwork as Michelangelo would have been of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

By this time, my buddy's aunt was fanning herself to ward off the impending panic attack. "That's not going to dry before he gets dressed," she pointed out.

I pointed out that her nephew would not emerge for at least another half-hour. And then I slipped in the remark that I was about to put on the oven and put the shoes in for five minutes, just to make sure the paint was well and truly dry.

I was kidding, but she clasped the piano, the better to break her fall.

When the colour drained from her face, I promised her I was exaggerating. The paint was almost dry. I wouldn't have to put his clod-hoppers in the oven.

Yeah, right, she was thinking. She'd known me long enough to recognise the fact that it was just the sort of thing I would do for the sake of a prank. So she hovered around. Just in case I reached for the oven door.


Like a burglar hiding the evidence, I placed the shoes back in precisely the same spot from where I had "liberated" them. Sure enough, he put them on and laced them up without a shred of suspicion. Everything was going to plan.

We drove to the appointed address to take some family photographs before the wedding. Then things started to fall apart. Because we were very close to the church, it was decided that we would simply walk across.

This was an unexpected spoke in the wheel. I'm a great advocate of walking and other healthy pastimes. But, for cryin' out loud, not when a guy's got paint on his shoes. I was running out of options. What could I do? Ring Dial-A-Palanquin, perhaps? Phone Dial-A-Phaeton? Whistle up a retinue of palace guards to transport him, like some ancient potentate, to the church door?

So we walked. A couple of hundred metres, that was all. I gritted my teeth all the way. Each step that he took drove a knife into my soul, the soul of an inveterate prankster. By the time he knelt at the altar, you had to look really closely to see the words "HELP ME!"

Now I know how Rembrandt must have felt (posthumously, of course) when his masterpiece "The Night Watch" was slashed to ribbons.

I felt like I needed a quadruple art bypass.


For the home of ABC Wednesday, go to Mrs Nesbitt's Place.

Name, Prank And Serial Number

I Is For Intenet (And IT And Irritable)

Before I start writing the actual post, I just want to run this concept past you. Trust me, you'll understand exactly why in a moment:

WHITE TYPE ON A RED BACKGROUND LOOKS LIKE THIS:

WHITE TYPE ON A PURPLE BACKGROUND LOOKS LIKE THIS:

BUT WHITE TYPE ON A WHITE BACKGROUND IS INVISIBLE:

Okay, so I've pulled a few pranks in my time, but this will always be one of my favourites. This happened in the early days of email, long before most offices and corporations implemented policies for use of the Internet and office-based email.

A very close friend of mine - and a terrific worker, I should point out - was having a bit of a chuckle about an email he had received. The attachment contained a file that I would classify as risque, rather than anything totally offensive. He spent several moment spluttering with laughter and then called me over to have a look at the file.

``That sort of stuff could get you into a lot of trouble,'' grunted another colleague - with a twinkle in his eye. I took that as my cue. I hatched a plan and returned to my desk. I rang the office IT support team to tell them what I was doing. I told them my friend would soon ring to report a computer problem - and I told them exactly how to respond to his phone call.

That was the easy part. The hard part was finding the opportunity to take over his computer for about ninety seconds. Midway through the afternoon, my good friend left his desk for about five minutes. I quickly raced over to his computer and changed the settings on his control panel. Instead of the default setting of black text on a white background, he would now get white text on a white background.

In other words, anything he typed would be invisible! (And he’s not a nerd, so I knew he wouldn’t figure out what had happened!)

Sure enough, when he returned, he thought his computer was playing up. Bless his cotton socks, he's a wonderful bloke but he's hopeless with computers. And he gets really, really narky when technology ceases to function as expected.

When he returned to his desk, he soon realised there was a problem with his computer. Speaking through gritted teeth, he picked up the phone, rang the IT department as I had predicted - and asked them to come and sort out his ``bloody computer''. The two IT experts who had been ``coached'' by me appeared shortly after. They could have each received Oscar nominations for carrying out their parts without betraying the game. In a nutshell, this is what transpired ...

IT experts: ``Do you have pornographic material on this PC?''
Colleague: (startled) ``No.''
IT experts: ``Any offensive downloads?''
Colleague: ``No.''
IT experts: ``Have you recently opened any email attachments?''
Colleague: (cautiously) ``Er, yes.''
IT experts: ``Can we inspect them please? There is one attachment doing the rounds that is classified as pornography - and it is causing a strange virus that is wiping out the hard drive of the computers of everyone who opens the attachment.''
Colleague: (with a slight stutter and showing signs of cracking under the strain)``There is one email attachment that I opened today ....''

For the next five minutes, the IT guys shook their heads as they sternly inspected the email, opened the attachment and told my colleague, stony-faced, that he could be responsible for IT mayhem in the company.

Just when he started sweating bullets, they told him there would be serious consequences.

Colleague: ``Like what?''
IT experts: ``Like if you don’t go and talk to your mate David McMahon, who orchestrated this entire prank.''