How I beat Mike.

.I’m sorry but I’m busting a gut. I have to tell. I know I gave him till Friday to figure it out and it's only been 1 day, but anticipation is getting the better of me.

I’ve always said the best practical jokes were the simplest. I’m been involved in some elaborate practical jokes over the years. I’ve completely reprogrammed someone's computer. I flipped all the drawers in someone else’s desk. Did you know you can’t just flip the drawers over? You have to pull and flip the tracks first. There was a lot of remodeling associated with the drawer flip. We reprogrammed someone’s phone on them. None of the buttons worked right. (One of the biggest mis-fires was when we swapped all the letters around on someone’s keyboard. It took two people about a half hour. Several days went by and the victim hadn’t said anything. Weren’t we surprised to learn that this person knew how to type and didn’t have to look at the keyboard? He never even noticed that caps had been moved. ) Usually the response was a quick “Ha Ha” followed by a very stern “Now fix it!” To date the best practical joke I’ve ever witnessed was when this guy (wasn’t me) put a little piece of cellophane tape on the ignition key of someone’s car. It was a cold rainy sleety February afternoon. The guy with the tape on his key couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t go into the lock. After standing by his car shivering for 20 minutes trying to figure out why, he just had the car towed. After the car was on the hook, he noticed the tape. He spent another 15 minutes trying to get the tape off the key. Apparently cold shivering fingers aren’t that nimble. Again, I was neither party. What I will say it that this one’s pushing 20 years and damn is it still funny. See, 2 days flipping and re-stuffing desk drawers barely rated a sarcastic “ha ha”. Compared to 2 seconds and a half inch of Scotch Tape 20 years ago that’s still funny. Simple is better.

So what did I do to Mike?

Mike is a better golfer than I. He’s already beaten me this year. Nuff said on that? I’m not beating him fair and square. Just isn’t going to happen.

The plan was to rattle him so much he couldn’t play. As witnessed by the rules, there were all kinds of things I was planning on doing to him. Extra balls, walking, he has to carry his bag and so on. The one’s I was really counting on were: getting rid of his 3 iron, walking, him carrying his bag and not letting him buy water. I would have scheduled the match for a day that was really hot. The rule I slipped in that would have enabled me to do all this was, you could only use what you yourself brought to the course. All the other stuff was meant to be an annoyance and white noise. I figured that if I had him so wrapped up in worrying about extra balls, Mulligans and looking for lost balls he wouldn’t notice the other stuff. I figured the more rules I added, the more hidden the real things became.

I was shocked the other day when I came into the office and he started in on me. Apparently I’m not as slick as I thought. He had figured out almost everything; the balls in the pockets, his 3 iron, almost everything. I was bumming. I couldn’t let on but I was starting to panic. Hey, not only was there $200 at stake, but I’d never live it down. I had been on him pretty good about my beating him because I was going to get into his head. If he beat me, well hell I’d pay $1000 not to let that happen.

So, I realized that the only arrows left in my quiver were walking and carrying his bag. I figured that would be enough. I wasn’t happy, but I could verbally torture him on the course as well. I’d figure out how later. But I’m worrying. All of a sudden one of the guys (Grape Ape) looks at me and says “You ought to put in a rule that he has to walk……….” Now I’m freaking out. That’s everything. I’m screwed. Mike doesn’t know yet, but it’s only a matter of time and I’m running out of it. This bet is less than a week old and already the wheels are off the bus. DAMN.

Sooooooooo, just how did I cheat Mike? I went in and changed the rules BEFORE I asked him to agree to them.

To do it after would be cheating, cheating, and I don’t do THAT. I do twisting cheating. To change the rules after he’s agreed would be wrong. But to do it an hour BEFORE he agrees to them well, that’s OK.

I knew Mike read the rules, he was already twisting them. I assumed he wasn’t going to read them again. I assumed he would be just looking for new rules appended to the end of my ever growing rules note. I also figured he’s looking for tricks/gimmicks and even if he does re-read the whole note, it will be a quick scan. Maybe he won’t notice. And even if he does notice he’ll start arguing about my cheating and changing the rules which is OK because I don’t want him to figure out the walking part. I would be willing to have the argument about changing the rules all day because he wouldn’t be looking for other tricks. I figure it’s a no loose scenario because if he agrees to the rules with the edits, he can’t win and if he spots the edit he’ll be distracted from everything else. Eventually he’d go back to analyzing the rest of the rules, but I would have bought some time.

So what did I add? I added

■Mike has to play one handed
■Mike can only wear one shoe
■Mike has to wear a blindfold

So how was I able to make the edit?

Facebook does not allow you to change a comment. Rules added into the comments would be unchangeable. Sure I could delete and re-enter them. However, that would change both their position on the comments list and the date of the comment. That would be too noticeable. However, you can edit the original note. Facebook does not update the posted date if you edit the note. I saw a couple of people read the edited rules, then immediately check the date. When they saw the date hadn’t changed, all just assumed everything was fine. And it wasn’t just Mike. Several people checked the date and time.

So I updated the Note and posted a message about agreeing to the rules. I was surprised Mike agreed so easily. EXCELLENT he hadn’t re-read the rules. He hadn’t seen the updates. I quickly PDF’d the rules and sent them to him so he couldn’t argue about it later. When he finally did read them, he quit. GREAT, he forfeited I win. No money is changing hands. With this level of manipulation taking the money wouldn’t be fair; however, getting him to acknowledge that OLD GUYS RULE is extremely fair. After all I may have cheated, but I did out smart him. I warned him first too.

So what was the clue I left for Mike the other day?

When Mike finally figured it all out he sent me a text message saying he couldn’t play until September 2, 2012. If you recall, there’s a rule that if we don’t play by Sept 1, the bet is nullified. We had a brief debate about the date and his forfeiting. As part of the date argument I told him I hadn’t specified a year. Well Mike my young friend, I had. The original rules said Sept 1, 2012. After you forfeited and I decided to let you in on the deceit, I went in and took the year out. Look at the PDF I sent. Compare that to the date that’s in there now.

See, the simplest are the best. All the elaborate rules with hidden meanings were worthless. The simple editing of the note worked great.


I think I’m done tweaking the kiddies. This one was too close.



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