Women used to have these things called “hair rats” that they put in their hair to achieve certain styles. They went under the hair, I believe. By themselves, they didn’t look quite wholesome.
One day my friend Ellen came out with her mother’s hair rat in her hand. “Look at this!” she cried. “Doesn’t it look like a poo?”
“Wow! It sure does! Let me borrow it for a little while.”
With the hair rat hidden in my pocket, I went back indoors, picked up a comic book, and locked myself in the bathroom. My mother was seated at the dining room table a few steps away, working on her comptometer. (Do those exist anymore? Let me see if I can find a picture.)
I stayed in the bathroom for a while, reading the comic book and occasionally making a loud noise that I hoped would suggest meant that I was having some difficulty. By and by I emerged from the bathroom with the hair rat in my hand. I went up to my mother and held it out for her to see.
“It wouldn’t go down when I flushed,” I said.
The joke had the desired effect. “Aaaagh!” Her reaction was all I could have hoped for. It certainly banished any sense of boredom she might have been experiencing.
And here’s a comptometer like my mother used to have. Invented in 1887, it was an extremely fast mechanical calculator, since superseded by computers. My mother was a skilled comptometer operator, which meant some extra money for the household.
Note: I don’t know why I want to write about practical jokes today. But who am I to shoo away a pleasant memory?