A 2000 Year Old Trick

With some family over here from England for a short holiday it was a time a bit of a get together one evening at the farm.

Everything was prepared and set as seven English folk and Galia was the only Bulgarian present looked forward to a long night of eating drinking and not least talking. But the most memorable part of the evening was a big joke set up and administered upon one of my family.

The person who was set up is probably the biggest practical joker there and we were about to see the tables turned as the evening begun.

A few days before another one of my family had a joke played on him. He went to the Elhovo, with a swarm of expatriates now resident there and visited an antique shop. There he was very excited when he found some roman coins for sale. He was under the impression they were real couldn't believe his luck then bought a handful on impulse.

At 10 leva each, they weren't expensive as far as he was concerned. Galia and I just knew that they were copies not only from the price, which we thought was overally expensive, but also by the composition of the coins. They were excellent copies and great as a curiosity and souvenir, unfortunately that was all they were worth.

Still convinced these coins were real, we thought we'd conjure a trick on the practical joker of our family. We weren't too sure how he would react having a trick bounced on him, but went ahead anyway.

The plan was to make out that the roman coins were found in his Bulgarian garden. All the food and drink and trick were prepared as we started the evening.

On a trip to the bathroom one of the family ran back to the party all excited, muddy hands and his fist clenched with muddy roman coins. He was shouting, "Look, look what I've dug up in your garden! All the party was in on the joke as we got the new "owner by rights" to look at the coins. He was now so full of when he personally took control washing the coins in the outside tap getting more and more excited as each coin revealed itself to be 2000 years old. Plans were already being made to sell them for astronomical money in the UK as the pound signs in his eyes started rolling round.

When all the coins were cleaned it was a rush back to the garden with a garden fork to look for more before it got dark. It was the gold rush set in as he started digging away at the site where they were 'apparently found.'

In the background was stifled laughter as we tried to hold back our amusement. The joke had to end there as the fork began to work the land. It was even more laughter held back when he said that he couldn't believe they had been found as he'd dug this land over a few months ago and never found anything.

So the joke was revealed and the reaction was total reservation and a big congratulations to everyone as he had fallen for it hook line and sinker and this was one of the best tricks of all time!

It was back to the party all-high and in full swing now. Later the original coin buyer, who still thinks they are real coins got a big toad put down the back of his collar to get a little revenge for the trick. 'That's not the last of it' he said as we wait for more trickery as payback.

And what did Galia think of all this as a Bulgarian? She was in fits lf laughter all the way through the evening, lovely to see this, as she now has to get used to English humour from my side of the family.