THE REST OF THE STORY . . .

I know there are a few of you who have been waiting to hear how this story turned out!  As you might remember, this summer my Dad built some additions on to some historic Forest Service cabins out in Landmark.  He crawled under one of the existing cabins and hid a very realistic,  yet entirely styrofoam SKELETON in the dark, creepiness of the crawl space.  And then he waited--NEARLY ALL SUMMER--for the plumber, Rod, to arrive to complete his work in the crawl space.  Tonight I finally got Dad to sit down and write the story out for me (since I wasn't there)!

  The following are his exact words:

Rod crawled under the cabin, pushing his work light ahead of him.  He asked me to hand him his tools once he had crawled farther in.  After he was about 3/4 of the way into the crawl hole, he stopped.  There was no movement for awhile.  "Tom!!!"  Rod calls out.

I don't answer 'cause I know I'll bust out laughing.

     "Tom!  There's a BODY under here!!!"

Yeah right Rod.

     "There's a body under here!!  A HUMAN body!!"

C'mon Rod, I know you don't want to crawl under this old building but this is the worse excuse I've ever heard!

Rod crawls back out from under the cabin--much quicker than he went under too!

     "You think I'm kidding, don't you?  I'm SERIOUS--get down there and have a look for yourself!"

Damn Rod--you're right!  I wonder how we missed seeing that before!

We spent about five minutes in serious discussion about how it could be possible for a skeleton to be there.  Then Rod pulled himself together and started back under the cabin.

Rod--I can't believe you're going under there with that skeleton!

     "Well, I've got to finish the job, besides he's DEAD and I'll be working on the other side of the building anyway."

Rod crawled in and went to work--constantly talking to us, as well as himself.  After a few minutes Rod says, "This is kind of creepin' me out, I'm going to go over to take a closer look . . .  Hey, this kinda looks like plastic.  Something doesn't look quite right . . ."

We hear some grunting and scraping as Rod works his way closer to the skeleton.

     "Tom!!!  This is REAL!!!!  There's a WATCH on its wrist--THIS THING IS REAL!!!"

(Readers, this is Tess for a minute.  Just so you know, while walking on the beach in Deadwood I found the band to a stainless steel wristwatch.  Dad thought it would be a perfect addition to his skeleton--which we were "installing" that particular weekend.  How funny it turned out to be THE thing that convinced Plumber Rod that the skeleton was indeed, real.)

After a little more freakin' out Rod, we finally clued him in to the prank. 

     "That's one of THE best ones anybody has EVER pulled on me.  I LOVE IT!!!  You guys get an A+ for that one!!" 

Rod took it so well, the whole thing was so worth it!

YOU'RE AN A+ TOO ROD!