OMG! OMG! OMG! If you’ve read my book DeForest Kelley Up Close and Personal: A Harvest of Memories from the Fan Who Knew Him Best you are about to SCREAM with DE-light, I do believe!

 

Because I’m downsizing in preparation to moving to Costa Rica next year, last night I was going through my photos (in albums and scores that are loose in boxes) and I ran across an image that I didn’t even know I had: I don’t even remember ever seeing it before!  I don’t know who took it because both of the principals in the image certainly didn’t!

 

At any rate, I am going to reprint the story that’s in my book to refresh your memory, or to put you in the loop in case you haven’t read the book yet. So, here we go!

 

HOPPY HALLOWEEN

 

Kat and I hand-made a pair of truly grotesque (by design) bunny costumes that we had planned to wear to AC Lyles’ place in Bel Air on Halloween. (We had never perpetrated a got’cha on AC and figured it was time.) We each had a pair of panty hose over our heads, with cardboard pushed into the legs to make them resemble crude bunny ears; we had white jogging pants on with men’s BVDs outside them (to hold the cotton tails we had made). Two women have never, in all of earth history, looked so ludicrous as we did in those get-ups. We were hysterical thinking what AC’s reaction would be when he opened the door and spotted us standing there with a gaudy, plastic basketful of Reese’s peanut butter cups (his favorites).

 

We were planning to tell AC, when he answered the door, that we were there to audition for the sequel to Night of the Lepus, the last film AC had made with De. But as bad luck would have it, President G.H. Bush called AC out of town on Halloween weekend to campaign for him, so…

 

We needed another victim.

 

Kat suggested De and Carolyn, and I said no. “Jeez, if the neighbors catch us looking like idiots…it’ll embarrass the Kelleys. We can’t do this to them!” (Up in Bel Air, where the Lyles lived, we knew that no one would know us, but De’s neighbors would recognize us.)

 

Kat moped and groused, and I finally conceded. We’d gone to some expense to make ridiculous costumes, so…it was decided. We’d go to the Kelleys. We added “DeForest” and “Carolyn” to the sweatpants and headed out.

 

Still, I was nervous about it.

 

Kat called Carolyn before we left, to be sure our victims would be at home when we arrived. When Carolyn answered the phone, Kat said, “Boo! Happy Halloween!” Carolyn returned the greeting and Kat asked permission to stop by and drop something off. Carolyn said the threshold had just been painted and was still wet. Kat said, “Oh, we don’t want to come in. We just want to drop something off and we want you to look out the window when we do it, if you can.”

 

Carolyn said, “Oh, you can come in; I just don’t want you to step on the threshold when you do it.” Then she laughed, “Maybe Kris can carry you over the threshold, since Daryl isn’t around!”

 

Kat mentioned what a beautiful, clear day it was and Carolyn said, “This is exactly how it was when we moved here: clear, quiet, no crime…”

 

Kat said, “Darn! We missed it!”

 

Carolyn joked back, “You weren’t even BORN yet!”

 

Kat responded, “Details, Carolyn! Details!”

 

Carolyn then asked Kat, “Does Kris want to talk to me?”

 

Kat asked me, “Do you want to talk to Carolyn?”

 

I was so nervous about our impending got’cha that I said, “No!” because I knew we were about to make complete asses of ourselves. Kat said to me, “Oh, come on!” and whispered, “She asked for you. She’ll be hurt if you don’t say something.”

 

So I leaped over to the phone and said enthusiastically, “Hi, Carolyn!”

 

Sounding a little hurt, Carolyn asked,  “Don’t you want to talk to me?”

 

I said, “Yes, yes, yes, I do!” — and she laughed.

 

I added, “But — we’re gonna see you in a few minutes.”

 

Carolyn said, “So we can talk then, right?”

 

I said, “Right!”

 

“Well, I’ll talk to you then, then! Bye!”

 

We drove over. I was really traumatized by this little thing we were about to do, worrying that it was very much over the edge.

 

Kat had a rather large amount of Science Diet dry cat food pebbles clasped tightly in one fist as we got out of the car. I had the Halloween basket in one of my hands. We started up the sidewalk to the front door and then were surprised from behind. De had exited the garage door and come around behind us. When he saw us, he looked –perplexed. Perhaps a better word is troubled. By us. I immediately felt we had sinned, big time.

 

Kat went over to him and started with, “Oh, I’m so happy to see you….I’m so excited to see you…I can’t control myself!” – and, back behind her cotton tail, she dropped the Science Diet pellets on the sidewalk, to make it look as though the bunny had pooped.

 

De looked down at the kibble mess and said, “Oh, my.” He started to lean down to collect the joke, and Kat said, “Don’t worry about that! I’ll pick it up!”

 

De said, “Oh, no! You two get in the house. Get in the house right now! I’ll take care of this.”

 

Yep, it was definitely the neighbors he was concerned about.

 

Kat and I went inside. Carolyn saw us and laughed. I handed her the basket of Reese’s peanut butter cups and said, “Happy Easter. I mean, “Hoppy Halloween!”

 

She sat the basket down and invited us into their little office. We began to chat. Not long after, De stepped into the room.

 

Kat said, “Sorry, De.”

 

De said, “It’s all taken care of. Don’t worry about it.”

 

I said, “I’m really surprised you invited us in, the way we look — and after all that.”

 

De studied our costumes for a beat and then posed, “You know, you look a little bit like nuns with that head gear you have on.”

 

Kat shot back, “This is the first time I’ve ever been thought of as a nun!”

 

De laughed. “Yes, I can well imagine that. You might want to aspire to something like that.”

 

Kat said, “Not on your life, Mr. Kelley.”

 

De again studied the costumes. “You have your underwear on the outside of your jogging pants.”

 

“Yes,” I explained. “We didn’t want to put a hole in our pants, so we bought men’s underwear to cut a hole in. It was funnier than women’s, since we’re – women.”

 

De said, “If you had put them on backward, you wouldn’t have had to cut a hole in them!”

 

I said, “Good thinking, De. We weren’t thinking. What could possibly lead you to believe we were thinking — at all?”

 

He laughed.

 

Kat joked to De, “If we’d done that, and hadn’t cut holes, we could have given you the underwear afterward!”

 

De laughed and joked, “That’s right. That’s why I said that!”

 

We all laughed.

 

I acknowledged, “Kat and I both have bigger butts than you do. These shorts would fall down around your knees!”

 

True to form, Kat commented, “That would be good!”

 

Carolyn said, “That’s quite enough, girls!”

 

We visited for about an hour, chatting about much less controversial topics, and then Kat and I “hopped” home…

 

 

HOPPY HALLOWEEN!

Kris Smith and Kat Lane in our awesome/ful Night of the Lepus costumes