When my sister and I were kids we got up to a lot of mischief. We’d climb up onto the roof and light our dad’s underwear on fire, and when they brought Nanna over to babysit, we’d swap her heart medication for Pop’s.
The trouble didn’t let up even well into our teens and early twenties. Our dad owned a reception hall and had a catering service based there as well. This place was like a wonderland for us as kids, and even returning in our later years was an adventure. The place had an industrial sized kitchen with commercial refrigeration and all the rest. One day, the freezer started leaking and we overheard Dad making a call to get a Sydney fridge repair. We glanced over at each other and smiled slyly, later sneaking into the laundry room to conceive of our plot.
Our aim was to give the repairs guy the shock of his life. Dumb, I know, but hilarious too. The commercial fridge at the reception centre looked a lot like the one from The Shinning. We always used to make jokes about it and imitate Jake Nicholson’s voice shouting “Danny Boy!” while chasing after each other and miming axe-wielding gaits. We decided that we’d put on a proper show and re-enact this scene for the fridge repairs guy.
As you can imagine, when Dad called him back a few weeks later for the broken washing machine repairs in the laundry room, the guy was professional about it, but reserved. After what he’d seen at the reception centre, he was clearly unimpressed — and who can blame him? While he was crouched down with his head buried in the fridge, spanner in hand, we dimmed the lights. He popped his head out curiously and then resumed work, only to jump to his feet in fridge when we ran in there, my sister dressed as Danny and I as the blood-thirsty killer. You should have seen the look on his face!