Snakes, Nuts and the Perfect Practical Joke
When the prank is not a prank, it's the best prank of all. A tiny life lesson.
WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, the ads in comic books offered all manner of glorious miscellany — entertaining products designed to separate Gen-X kids from their 25¢ or 75¢ or $1.25 or $3.99 plus shipping and handling.
There were the inimitable Sea-Monkeys®, which would have you believe that tiny brine shrimp were “eager to please” and could become suburban, nuclear-family pets.
There was the hovercraft (“New Hovercraft Rides on Air!”), which subtly implied that you could ride it, when in reality it was an 11-inch plastic item — sort of an outsized air-hockey puck — that didn’t have much practical use.
There were the inevitable itching powders and hot pepper gums designed to inflict minor misery upon whatever perpetratee the comic-book reader happened to select.
And there was, always, the time-honored “Snake Nut Can,” which dates to the nineteen-teens. You know, the one that appeared to be a can of “fancy salted mixed nuts,” but if you opened it, a coiled, spring-powered “snake” would pop out and scare the bejeezus out of anyone in range. (Side note: Are there any uses for the word “bejeezus” other than in relation to being scared?)
I generally avoid quoting Wikipedia, but these are wonderful sentences just to read (if a tad laden with outdated gender tropes):
The item was invented by Samuel Sorensen Adams of the S.S. Adams Co. circa 1915. Adams' wife Emily had been complaining about the jam jar, saying that it wasn't properly closed or that it was sticky. Adams, inspired by her nagging, then invented a spring snake - a coil of wire wrapped in a cloth skin, and compressed the two-foot snake into a little jam jar so that it would jump out when the lid was removed.
The snake jam jar then evolved into a whole array of products, including the snake peanut brittle can, the snake mint can, and the best-selling snake nut can. In the 1990s Adams' grandson produced snake potato chips.
By the 1970s, the Snake Nut Can was product #751 in the ad below, available for just $1.95 from the good folks at the Fun Factory on Union Street in Palisades Park, New Jersey.
This is the story of how my dignified, linguistics-professor father crossed paths with the Snake Nut Can in the early 1980s. How did that happen, you ask? (OK, I grant that you almost certainly didn’t ask.) In his gently contrarian way, he turned it into his own gently contrarian practical joke.
WHEN MY LATE FATHER was running the Asian Studies program at the University of Pittsburgh in the 1970s and early 1980s, it was situated in a warren of offices and desks that made up the University Center for International Studies. Whatever corner you turned, you’d find a different region — Eastern European Studies, African Studies, what have you.
One pod over was Latin American Studies. Its leader at the time, Carmelo Mesa-Lago, was one of those fascinating, larger-than-life figures who always seemed to be doing something interesting and always had a moment to stop and talk to the hyperactive early teenager who was me at the time. My father, a Spanish speaker, enjoyed interacting with all the Latin American Studies folks and was often spotted over in their area.
They were cheerful jokesters, too. Somewhere they had procured a Snake Nut Can at one point or another, and they delighted in pranking visitors with it. A newcomer would arrive, and someone on staff would say, “Would you like some nuts?” Lo and behold, they’d unscrew the top and the snake would come shooting out, and various bejeezuses would be scared out of assorted colleagues.
For my father, this was an obvious, if silent, challenge. So he hatched a plan.
One morning, very early, he arrived at his office in Asian Studies. He had brought supplies. Carefully making sure he was the only one around, he padded over to Latin American Studies. He located the Snake Nut Can on display on a shelf. He opened it. The snake cooperatively popped out. My father took it and put it aside.
Then he pulled out his supplies, by which I mean an actual can of actual fancy salted mixed nuts. He cracked them open and, carefully, he poured them from originating can into destination can. He replaced the top, grabbed the “snake” and retreated back into his own territory.
Then he waited.
Early afternoon or so, he sauntered over for his usual Asian Studies-Latin American Studies peregrinations. He found a victim — one of his friends, who was also one of those responsible for the Snake Nut Can’s presence in the first place. With studied nonchalance, he picked up the can and handed it to her.
“Would you care for some … mixed nuts?”
Her eyebrow went up. Gingerly, she took the can, held it sideways at arm’s length, unscrewed the top, jerked her wrist in anticipation … and poured fancy salted mixed nuts all over the carpeted floor.
My father, all innocence and concern, looked at her with what we might now call a WTF expression and slowly backed away, pantomiming confusion as he withdrew once more into his own sovereign realm without a word.
Later, he would say some version of this to me about the episode: “It didn’t harm anyone. Everyone went away happy.”
I’VE ALWAYS LOVED THIS STORY. It’s the perfect practical joke. It’s funny and has an edge to it, and it harmlessly turns the tables on would-be pranksters, beating them at their own game.
But in recent years (warning: lesson ahead), I have considered the whole interlude in a bit of a different way.
My father was a very mild man, which is not to be confused with being a pushover. He did not suffer fools, but he also was the kind of guy who, if he found a skunk in the garage (this happened), would spend hours judiciously plotting how to get it out safely rather than trying to scare it or worse.
More than anything, he was a teacher. And nearly a decade after his death, his “revenge” on his Snake Nut Can-wielding friends and colleagues contained a subtle time capsule of a lesson for me. Three lessons, truth be told.
Sometimes you can confound people and entertain them in a completely amiable way without doing damage or making anyone feel small. In the era of surreptitious smartphone videos and sharp-edged pranks designed to take random people down a notch or expose them to ridicule, this is a valuable life lesson.
If you turn any idea inside out, or look at it from a different vantage point. new opportunities often arise. There are always possibilities — even with practical jokes procured from novelty shops or the pulpy pages of old comic books.
With enough thought, the expected and received narratives that we encounter in life can be interrupted or commandeered. In today’s world, I can think of few skills more important.
Sometimes a Snake Nut Can contains a snake. Sometimes it contains nuts. And sometimes, as my father demonstrated, it contains more than you might expect. Almost anything can point a path to enlightenment. Even a Snake Nut Can.
OK, maybe not Sea-Monkeys®. But pretty much anything else.
Are you sure it's not "various Bejeezi?"
We all know, though rarely use, bejeezus (aka bejesus). But it takes a wordsmith of your inventiveness to concoct "perpetratee," which really *should* be a word, Ted.
Well-spun yarn with value-added lessons.