I have always enjoyed playing a practical joke on people, but no one as much as my Granny Ruby. She was always so humorous and would easily laugh at herself.

Madeline and I had temporarily left Austin and were living in Houston where we had several projects going on. We still had our home in Austin so we would sometimes return to Austin on the weekends.

This one weekend when we were in, my sis-in-law Karen told me that Granny Ruby, who lived in North Austin was having a garage sale and she was going to be taking stuff over to sell also.

Early the next morning, when I figured she had moved everything out and had it all tagged and ready, I called her up and when she answered, I disguised my voice and said I was Sgt. Joe Smith with the Austin Police Dept. I explained to her that there was a new city ordinance that didn’t allow garage sales without a permit and a fee being paid.

I told her I just driven down her street and saw that she was in violation and she had to get everything picked up out of that yard and back in the house in the next 30 minutes before I made another round. If she didn’t comply, I would handcuff her and haul her off to jail.

Karen drove up few minutes later as she was dragging everything back inside. She told her about the courtesy phone call she had received from the policeman and Karen assured her that there was no such ordinance and someone was playing a joke on her.

Then Karen recalled telling me about the yard sale. A few minutes later my phone was ringing with an old woman on the other end that was laughing so hard she could barely talk.

When Madeline found out about what I’d done she wasn’t very pleased with me. I told her I wouldn’t do it again.