What Came First: The Prank Or The Egg?

(Growing up, I was the kid in my family who tended to have the worst sense of humour. I was certainly a stick in the mud at school, and even at home I wasn’t very good at taking a joke. Still, my family was very close, especially after my grandparents moved to the same town as us. One day, we are visiting a nearby village and pop into a tourist store. God knows why, but they have these little rubber eggs on sale; they’re not round enough to bounce properly, just rubber eggs used for… I’ve no clue. However, having a quid burning a hole in my pocket convinces 14-year-old me that this particular trinket is worth having. That afternoon we head to my grandparents’ house for lunch. I pop into the kitchen and open the fridge, and I spot that the egg tray is just one short of being full. Looking around to make sure nobody is watching me, I grab the rubber egg out of my pocket and put it in the tray. Afterward, I pretty much forget about the whole thing… until a week later, when I am back at home.)

Mum: “Hey, [My Name]?”

Me: “Yes?”

Mum: “Didn’t you buy a rubber egg at that shop in [Village]?”

Me: “Oh, umm, yeah. I did. Why?”

Mum: “What did you do with it?”

(I told her about what I’d done, and she burst out laughing. It turns out, my gran tried to crack the egg, only to find that she couldn’t. Rather than realising she’d been pranked with a rubber egg, she instead took it down to her local supermarket and asked for a refund!  The employees were staring at her like she had two heads, before two of them took the egg and started playing catch. My gran still had no idea what was going on, but the chuckling manager happily gave her a free box of new ones. The next time I saw her I let her know what had happened and she spent the day with a huge grin. Apparently, what had really shocked her and my mum is that I’d managed to not tell anybody about the prank until it paid off! My gran still mentions it whenever she goes to that supermarket.)