Delayed Halloween Reactions

"Hey, what do you think I should do? My left foot is turning black and I can't feel anything! I think it has frostbite," says Dennis while on the phone, talking to his good friend, Grant. Grant is concerned for his friend's health at first, and then laughs. Dennis almost tricked him again.

As they continued talking, Grant and Dennis recalled the many times people had thought Dennis had injured his leg and needed help. There was the time a lady had thought the house had fallen on him and had cut off his leg. Dennis has convinced many kids convinced that he had super powers because he could remove his leg and they couldn't remove their own, although they sure tried hard to do so!

Grant remembered the time Dennis went horseback riding with a group of mutual friends. Dennis's horse got spooked and started bucking. The saddle started to slip under Cocoa's belly, so Dennis had to bail out. He went down to the ground, but his left leg went high into the sky, landing quite a distance away. Several people started panicking, and one guy almost had a heart attack when they saw Dennis' leg fly by them. None of the group's new members had noticed that Dennis had an artificial leg.

Dennis can be a very creative individual, especially when it comes to trying to scare kids on Halloween night. His spare artificial legs have been utilized as props in numerous pranks over the past twenty years. One such occasion was the year Dennis and Patricia (his first wife) set up a snow cone concession trailer for a Halloween carnival. Dennis couldn't resist the temptation to play tricks on the kids at the carnival. There's nothing like a bag dripping blood and showing part of a foot to frighten young children! It seems very few of the children were brave enough to reach into that bag to find out if the foot was real or not.

About six months after they had operated the Halloween concession, Dennis and Patricia went on vacation. They asked a neighbor to come over and take care of their animals while they were away. She kindly agreed to come by once a day, so Dennis and Patricia left Misty a key to the house, and then took off on their vacation. The next day, Misty entered the home to feed the dogs. While she was looking for the dog food, she came across a foot with dried blood on it lying on the table. Misty screamed; then ran home to get her husband.

Misty told her husband, Jack, about finding the foot with blood on it. He came over and looked at the foot, and then he broke out in a hearty laugh. Jack explained to his frightened wife how Dennis had an artificial leg. Yep! You guessed it. That bloody foot was part of the bloody bag prop Dennis had used for the Halloween carnival the year before. Dennis had laid the foot on the table when they got home, and then promptly forgot all about it. Dennis' best Halloween prank happened six months later, and he wasn't even around to see the reaction. For that matter, he hadn't even planned the trick!

With Dennis, you never know where you will find his leg. It is frequently separated from the rest of his body, since Dennis considers it a nuisance to him when he is climbing on a rooftop, crawling under a house, or working on a car. No matter where you find it though, you will always see the look of amazement and concern when someone who doesn't know Dennis very well finds that leg.

Learn more about this author, Penny S. Vincent.
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