When Grandpa saw the hat, he said, "Oh boy! That's all right!" and removed the sacred John Deere cap so he could put it on. When he tried on the glasses and looked in the mirror, he laughed and said, "Oh good grief," and they became a definite part of the disguise.
The mustache, however, didn't go so smoothly. Grandpa was pleased with it, but we had trouble getting it to stick. I didn't want to use the regular sticky backing on it because I thought that would be too hard on Gpa's real mustache hairs and skin when it got pulled off later. So we tried scotch tape. A bunch of scotch tape. (Being my father's daughter, I can't believe I didn't think of duct tape until now.) Anyway, the mustache wouldn't stick. "Why won't it stay on?" Grandpa asked. "Because it's made to stick to skin, not hair. Usually people who don't already have mustaches are the ones who wear fake ones." Grandpa looked in the mirror. "Oh," he said, "Oh yeah..." Goofball. We eventually figured out how to make it stick without hurting him coming off. The mustache came in a variety pack, and Grandpa agreed it would also be fun to cut a long one in half and wear it as eyebrows. He's blessed with plenty of skin at the eyebrow level and above, so they stayed on with no problem, once I got Grandpa to relax his forehead. He'd been very conscientious about stretching out his upper lip for the mustache, so when I moved to put on an eyebrow, he raised them for me. "No," I said, "Relax your forehead. These will stick better if it's not scrunched up." Grandpa frowned. "No, now it's scrunched the other way." Grandpa's eyebrows went back up, then he did his best to relax and smooth things out. I imagine that's not easy to do when your klutz of a granddaughter is messing around with your face. He picked bushy gray ones, which could also be clearer in the picture, and for the last time I apologize for my shaky hands - I'm working on it.
I'll find out on Monday how the surprise worked. I didn't wait around to find out today because part of the master plan was for me to leave as usual, nonchalantly saying goodbye and not giving anything away.
At lunchtime, I tried an April Fool's Day joke of my own. Grandpa likes routine, so for lunch he always has tomato soup, which he drinks from a big red cup, and chocolate Ensure, which he drinks from a small green cup. I've almost switched them by accident several times, but today I did it on purpose. He likes to have the light off most of the time, so I prayed that would work to my advantage, and I very nonchalantly put the cups in their usual places on his TV tray and walked away. Grandpa picked up the big cup and looked down into it as he always does. I'm not positive, but I think he checks every day to make sure I didn't screw up. He did a double-take with the big cup, then leaned forward and looked into the small cup. "Wait a minute!" he said in a firm, don't-you-walk-away-yet voice, and I laughed and said "April fool!" He laughed too. I was a bit disappointed, though. I'd hoped he would at least take one tentative sip. I should've known I can't compete with 93 years of orneriness. Guess there's only one April fool here today.
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