Bottle Rocket Rex

By: Jaimie Gleissner

Traveling Tunes: “Goldensole” - Dirty Sweet

Taking up residency at your place of employment has a way of making you feel as though you're always at work. An effective way to counteract this feeling is to pull pranks on unsuspecting /suspecting coworkers. Spontaneous or premeditate, pranks provide comic relief to all those participating and observing. Granted the target may not see the humor, I've found the most prankable people have been warned about the prank ahead of time. They lack faith that the prankster will follow through on the threat, so the joke ends up on them.

As soon as Nicky uttered those words, I knew we were going to execute our plan. Should her brother fail to make good on delivering a kitten, we were going to dye his dog. Rexy was a Jack Russel terrier. He stood about a foot high, was all white, and had a natural mo-hawk. Since the season started, Nicky and I had been joking about dying him, so after reaching our drink limit for the night, Nicky called her brother to inquire about her the cat. When he informed her she wouldn't get a cat soon, she told him that he should be worried about Rex and (with encouragement from one of the fishing guides) got the dye ready.

Our weapons of choice: a paste made from fruit punch (red drank) mix, blue food dye, and rubber gloves. Nicky restrained Rexy as I gloved up for the procedure. Despite a little struggling at first, he began to relax as I worked the dye into his fur. I like to think that Rex enjoyed both the attention and looking like a bomb-pop. Not to mention, the fruit punch made him smell awesome.

Pictures were taken, and everyone enjoyed the new, more patriotic, Freedom Rex. Unfortunately, due to lack of permanence, Nicky rinsed the dog that evening leaving only a shadow of the splendor that was Bottle Rocket Rexy. There was, however, enough color leftover to catch the owners eye. The next day Nicky and I braced ourselves for the repercussions of our actions. Considering the visible rage on her brother's face and the swear words he mumbled at lunch, I thought he took everything quite well. I'd never try it again (mostly because I'm pretty sure I'd be cut up and thrown in the crab pots – plus Rex would look better covered in glitter with a unicorn horn on his head), but it was, hands down, the best prank of the summer.