Impractical Jokes by Charlie Pickering

deal required that Richard take out a month’s worth of advertising in the Saturday morning papers. For four consecutive weeks, full-page advertisements would tell the world of the arrival of Opie Ties on the nation’s shelves. This represented the largest ad buy Richard had ever made and he was petrified. This would cost him thousands upon thousands of dollars, and in his mind, anything could go wrong: he could send the wrong photo; he could send the wrong slogan, or worst of all, do something that would put David Jones offside. Over a beer, Richard explained to Dad just how worried he was.
    â€˜What if the paper comes out advertising Opie Ties now available at Bavid Bones?’
    â€˜Well, I think that’s highly unlikely.’
    â€˜That we wouldn’t notice the typo?’
    â€˜That you’d use a ‘B’ twice. I mean typos happen all the time, but two Bs in a row, that would be extraordinary.’
    â€˜You’re not helping, Ron.’
    â€˜I didn’t realise I was supposed to be helping.’
    â€˜Ron, I’m just so worried that we’ll make a mistake.’
    In the end the only real mistake he made was mentioning his fear to my father.
    On the first Saturday the ad was to run, a nervous Richard Opie made his way out to the footpath to collect his paper. It had been delivered earlier and, as is the practice with home-delivered newspapers in the post-Cold War era, came rolled up in a tight cylinder which was comprehensively wrapped in cling film. From what I can tell the practice of hermetically sealing newspapers is aimed at delivering two major advantages. First, it increases the newspapers’ ability to withstand water damage, by all accounts a traditional weakness of newspaper. Second, the increased aerodynamics enable the delivery boy to get genuine momentum from his throw, thus increasing the number of truly interesting and hard to reach places from which one may expect to retrieve their paper. Yet on the morning in question, Richard found his newspaper waiting neatly in the middle of his driveway. He tucked the laminated news tube under his arm and headed inside to allay all concerns he had about the campaign. What he didn’t know was that on that particular morning, the paper had actually been thrown four feet into a small shrubbery that bordered his driveway. Or at least that’s where my father found it, before promptly exchanging it for the previous week’s newspaper.
    When Richard tore into the cling wrap and started furiously flicking through the pages of the paper, his thoughts were not of news. He was hunting only for his ad. Page after page was scanned in an instant, looking only for a photo of a tie and an absence of capital Bs. It was on the third pass that the swearing began.
    â€˜Bloody hell. Cheryl!’
    â€˜What is it, Richard?’
    â€˜Bloody hell!’
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜Damn!’
    â€˜What is it Richard?!’
    Whilst it had all the appearance of a conversation, no actual information was being exchanged. Cheryl, frustrated, was keen to get on board, but Richard’s train of thought had well and truly left the station. It was by pure chance that it stopped to collect her at all.
    â€˜It’s not here.’
    â€˜What’s not there?’
    â€˜Shit.’
    â€˜What’s not there, Richard?’
    â€˜The ad! The bloody ad!’
    â€˜Are you sure it’s not there?’
    Richard was now waving the paper wildly above his head.
    â€˜How many effing thousand dollars have we spent on this effing ad and the effing thing isn’t even effing there.’
    â€˜Is it really that bad?’
    â€˜Yes. Yes it is, Cheryl. There’s actually quite a good chance that we are now effed. And if . . .’
    As he lowered the paper, he trailed off. The front page had taken his attention. The headline wasn’t particularly exciting and the story itself was of little consequence, but the photo