Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
Carlene and I were outside working in the yard in the blazing heat, and came back in the house to get our body temperatures back to normal. We were cooling off when I got a text from an old friend named Kathy from my bus-driving days in California. She said she was in Sapulpa visiting family and wanted to get together and visit a little bit.
I retired in 2015, and she retired a few years later and I haven’t talked with her since then. We are friends on Facebook, and she has made a few comments on my posts over the years but that was about it. I had no idea she had any family in these here parts, so I was immediately skeptical that some hacker was trying to scam me. (That’s a very common reaction on my part as I don’t trust all this modern technology stuff). I called her back and did recognize her voice, but I wanted to test her to make sure it wasn’t some punk scammer.
I asked her what two songs came on the radio when we were driving that would trigger one of us to call the other and say, “turn up the radio”. She failed that test but was close with the answer. I then asked her ‘what was the greatest prank we pulled on our co-workers?’ We both laughed out loud as she blurted out Jelly Bellys! We needed some time to clean up before she came by and when I was looking for a clean shirt to wear, I saw my old souvenir Jelly Belly shirt. It was perfect and Kathy giggled about that one.
We were sorta partners in crime as we liked to mess with the other members of our team. We were a group of 5 or 6 drivers, a dispatcher and supervisor. We had multiple buses on the road in the mornings, taking kids to school mostly, but also transporting anyone else who needed a ride somewhere. After we got the school kids home in the afternoon, we dropped down to just two buses to finish the day. For a long time, that was me and Kathy. We called ourselves the Dream Team as we thought we handled that portion of the day with superior skills and abilities.
We worked together with the dispatcher to get everyone that was out shopping or coming home from another town on a different bus. We both knew what needed to be done and what the other driver was doing, and we worked together well to make sure our customers were not left stranded at quitting time. Yes, we were a bit cocky, but it was more in fun that we patted ourselves on the back. It was a great group of people to work with, and we had fun, but were committed to taking good care of the children and the seniors, especially, who counted on us.
We both shared a similar sarcastic sense of humor, and we sometimes went too far, like the time we made the new dispatcher cry. We weren’t bullying her, but that’s the way she took it, and we got into a little trouble over that one. We both felt bad about her getting so upset, but didn’t really understand why she took it the way she did. Most of our other team members knew we were harmless and could counter back with their own sarcasm. It was no different than most workplace chatter play. One day, Kathy called me from the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield. It was a great place to tour with family and friends, and she wanted to get some jelly beans to bring back to the crew. Jelly Belly makes what they call “the Harry Potter collection” of candy beans that come in disgusting flavors like barf, stinky socks, spoiled milk, dead fish, rotten egg, boogers, canned dog food, and a few other nasty-tasting treats. They taste bad, but they are harmless. It’s a popular item they sell in the souvenir store. They look like regular ones, so you can’t tell the difference.
I suggested she get a couple of large bags of their other mixed jellybeans and one small package of the Harry Potter nasty ones. They also sold bags of what they called Belly Flops. These were easily identified as they were misshapen or stuck together.
The idea was to mix them all in a jar and place them on the dispatch desk for everyone to enjoy. Kathy and I were the only ones who knew what was in there, but to divert suspicion we would also eat out of that jar. We always ate the Belly Flops as they were the only ones that we knew were safe. The naughty ones were few and far between, but they WERE in the jar somewhere. It was a brilliant scheme, and it took a long time before they caught on to what we had done.
After a few weeks, we were all in the office when the dispatcher ate a jelly belly candy and made a face. She said, “That tasted like a dirty sock.” Kathy and I left to get in our buses because we couldn’t keep a straight face for long. We made a rendezvous away from the office and began laughing uncontrollably for what seemed like the longest time. They eventually figured out it was us, but instead of being mad, they saw the beauty of the prank. They were most impressed with how we pulled it off without suspicion. We still laugh when we think about it. It was a master shenanigan, executed with perfection. Yes, we are both STILL very proud of that dirty deed.
