Sunday, April 1, 2012

April Fools - Fun for Some

As someone who loves a good prank, I enjoy April Fool's Day. However, it's the day of the year that you have to step it up a notch, since so many people are on their toes and watching for it. I have pulled my share of pranks over the years, both on this glorious day and throughout the rest of the year.

  • Several years ago, a few of us went out the night before the first day of college classes to prank several of our professors. Using a car jack and some bricks, we raised their car axles just high enough that the tires were not touching the ground. The car appeared normal, but did not move when they stepped on the gas. Five professors were late to school the next morning.
  • A college friend, Jayson Ferguson, later that year discovered a professor working late in his office one night. Upon leaving the building, he found a pile of cinder blocks to be used for a construction project starting the next day. A few quick phone calls provided the number of people necessary to haul the bricks into the building and block the prof in his office. Since his door opened inward, when he opened it to leave, he was met with a brick wall.
  •  When my son Christian was eight years old, he wanted to go TP-ing for Halloween. We lived about 20 miles from town, which was too far to go buy any, and did not have toilet paper to spare. He and I walked to a neighbor's house, broke in, stole their toilet paper and then TP-ed their house with it.
  • As a teenager, I had a friend that lived in a trailer with a flat roof. While he was at work, a few of us broke into his house and arranged the contents of his home onto his roof exactly as it was when it was inside the house. This included big items like the couch, entertainment center, beds, and dresser drawers. We even set the table for dinner.
  • When my nephew was younger, he was fascinated with chickens. For his eighth birthday, when he opened his gift from me, a live chicken jumped out and started running around the room. It was a huge hit with the kids. The adults were not as amused.
  • In college, when a neighbor went on vacation with his family one summer, a group of us broke into their house (yes, breaking and entering again), dug out their Christmas decorations and decorated their house. We put the lights up outside and erected the tree fully decorated. We used every item we found and turned the lights on. Their house was lit up for a week before they came home. It was July.
  •  I had a job as a dishwasher at Bonanza when I was sixteen. One night while training a new employee, I warned him about the dangers of getting dish lung. I told him that the industrial strength dishwasher put so much water vapor in the air that breathing it for hours a day would cause a build up of water in your lungs making you drown when you laid down for bed. I explained that standing on his head at the end of each shift would drain his lungs and prevent a possible death. I demonstrated and dribbled water out of my mouth. As I explained, a co-worker in on the joke started coughing and spit up a bunch of water he had discreetly put in his mouth. The trainee quit that night.
  •  In high school, our principal drove a tiny Mazda Fiat convertible. At lunchtime one day, when a guy making fun of the size of the car lifted the rear wheels off the ground, we decided to see if we could lift it completely off the ground. Discovering that we could, we placed it sideways in a nearby alley. The walls were less than six inches from the bumpers on each side.



I learned this behavior from my father. One year after a fishing trip, after cleaning and gutting all the fish, he went to a friend's house and put the guts in the garden just outside their windows. He covered them with dirt just enough that they could not be seen. In a few days, their entire house stunk.

He terrorized his high school by burying a road-killed skunk in the window flower box of the English room. The stench got so bad the teacher opened the window to air out the room. Of course, this made it worse since it was just outside.

He also taped the hammers together inside the piano right before his graduation ceremony. When the class musician went to play, all the hammers struck at once. After a confused look, he tried again with the same result.

As you can see, I inherited this behavior. It is not my fault. It's just part of my genes. There's nothing I can do about it. Not that I want to.



I do have a prank planned for today, but the specifics will not be mentioned in case my intended victim is reading this morning. Be warned, if you are within driving distance of me, it might be you and knowing that it is coming will not make any difference.


I asked my niece to explain what today is all about.

37 comments:

  1. This was great! I'm rushing out the door right now but I'll be back later to ask questions. I can see that this is just the tip of the iceberg ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm back. I know I've said this before, but you must be tons of fun to be around. I feel sorry for whomever you're out to get today though lol...

    I guess my main questions about all this are - did you get away with it all? Did the victims know you were a part of these escapades? It seems like, in some cases, you were taking the risk of getting in real trouble? Or, did you choose victims that you knew would play along with the game and not call in the cops?

    My favourite April Fools Day activity was injecting red food colouring into bananas. Although mild compared to what I've just read - I received a wonderful response. The ladies, after taking a bite and seeing what looked like a gush of blood inside the bananas, started screaming their heads off. Very satisfying.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For the people whose house we broke into, I was fairly confident that no police would be involved. I wouldn't try that on just anyone. In some cases they found out and in others, they didn't.

      The professors never knew who messed with their cars. They never even mentioned it on campus. The plan was to follow the rumor mill when it started. Since no students knew about it and the profs weren't talking, it would be easy to find the guilty party once the whispering started. Nothing was said for years. ONE of them just learned over a shared dinner last year. Of course, at that point we were all graduated and it had been over 10 years.

      TIP: Don't pull pranks with children. They cannot wait to tell the victim what they did. You won't stay anonymous.

      The food colored banana sounds funny. I will have to try that.

      Delete
    2. I think I've brought your visitor count up pretty well this morning. I'm bored and kept checking to see if you had responded.

      Thanks for answering my questions; I believe in never missing opportunities to learn from the masters.

      The food colour syringe technique is good, and when you do it, you should insert the needle in deep and then slowly pull back as you release the food colouring. That way it makes a nice streak all the way through. I suppose you could do it with something flavourful as well... Habanero sauce for example. However, the blood effect was rather good.

      Delete
  3. Sigh. You're terrible.

    Those poor teachers.

    Pretty funny though.

    Now I need a story of a teacher pranking their student or getting revenge ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh I just read your response. When they finally found out - did they laugh? I would.

    I love conspiratorial pranks. I would have loved to seen my dad's face if someone did the christmas decoration prank on us. He would have been SO PISSED about all the wasted electricity. Turn the DAMN LIGHTS OFF!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I still don't know if they all know, but one of them does. Since it was ten years after the fact, he had to think back for a moment and then finally, "That was YOU?"

      Yes, he laughed. I don't know if he told the others.

      Delete
  5. While this post did make me laugh, I must admit...I HATE pranks. Hate them with a passion. So it's a good thing that I don't live anywhere near you! Ha! Still, your pranks are VERY creative! Props to you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I understand. I do pick victims carefully. I has to be someone who can appreciate the joke and the work that was put into it. I was pranked once in such a way it took me over 12 hours to clean up. But the prank was so over-the-top good, I didn't mind.

      I wouldn't prank you if you didn't like it.

      Delete
  6. I like the dishwasher story best. I'm good with pranks at work, but not so much in real life...although I helped a friend come up one that would bend the housesitting rule without offending the homeowner.

    I tend to err on the side of caution. You know in case the receiver had a bad day and is not in the mood.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is always the risk of that. One night when there was sub-zero temperatures, I went out to the parking lot with a spray bottle and sprayed a few car doors. This froze them shut.

      The next morning, one woman was running late and could not get into her car which made her even later for work.

      I felt bad and sent flowers later.

      Delete
  7. Not a big fan of physical pranks like TPing or egging someones house, as my dad was a teacher and we had to deal with this growing up. But I do love the kinds of pranks where you fake people out.

    Your niece is very cute. And you can tell that she really meant it when she said you looked nice today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was trying to trip her up, but she wouldn't go for it.

      I can understand not liking those pranks, especially if they were done maliciously.

      Delete
  8. The one about setting up Christmas lights is the best.

    That and putting the car on bricks.

    A good giggle to start my week

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you.

      The cars on bricks was funny and super easy and quick to do.

      The Christmas lights took some time. We were there most of the night.

      Delete
  9. You have a gift for pranking! Although if I was your professor at the time, you would have paid dearly for any one of those particular "professor aimed" pranks :-) Likely through a prank of my own.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Out of all the things you took your SON on a BREAKING AND ENTERING EVENT?!?!? I am rally glad I don't live near you. I am the kind of girl that sleeps with a gun under her pillow. I might accidentally kill some fool pulling a prank on me.

    Just make sure that you know your intended victim, and their proclivities to channeling Belle Starr or Jessie James.

    www.sweetydarlin.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I knew that person very well and they were not home at the time.

      As far as I know, my son didn't break into people's houses when he got older. He made it to 20 years old without ever getting arrested, so I either raised a good kid OR he's really good at it.

      Delete
    2. I am going with he was good at it, as judging by your own exploits you trained him well in his deviant ways! I know I have trained mine well.

      Delete
  11. You and your eight-year-old son stole the neighbor's TP and wrapped his house with it. Now that, sir, is what I call love.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You have to take every opportunity you get to bond your kids.

      Delete
  12. Wow, those are impressive. I love the one about the Christmas lights. That one is epic.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. The victim appreciated it as well.

      "That was good. How long did it take?"

      Delete
  13. I've never really had the desire to prank anyone on April Fools but you have just converted me! I will be back in college for the next one and I think I am going to start planning now. I foresee a fully decked-out, black ninja suit and something involving a frat house rife with meatheads. Nothing malicious, per se.

    You should write a guide to pranking! Unless you want to keep your tricks of the trade family property, in which case I understand.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. College is the best for pranking. I could easily fill a book with both the ones I had a hand in and some of the others that happened while I was there.

      There are some very imaginative deviants out there.

      Delete
  14. I wanted to play a trick on my hubby this past Sunday when he had to fly back to Afghanistan. We had to get up at 3 in the morning to be at the airport by 4:30. I wanted to set the clocks ahead by three hours so I could shout, "We overslept! It's 6:30!" but that may have been a bit cruel.

    Maybe next year. I could do it and pretend he's late for work instead.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good idea. He might have thought it was funny.

      Delete
  15. I give you the crown...

    My pranking days are long, long gone, but you are the mighty king when it comes to pranks. Long live the king,

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. They don't come as often now as they used to, but I go back to the glory days every now and then.

      Delete
  16. Those are some serious pranks! You are my hero! This makes any pranks I have pulled seem like child's play!

    My dad was a prankster. When he was a kid, he used to spread thumb tack all across the floor and call for his sisters. When they came running the stepped into a painful nightmare! Unfortunately, I did not inherit his pranking genius. I was a momma's boy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My dad did that to us, but with mouse traps. Or he would call us into the room and throw them at us.

      It was great fun.

      Delete
  17. Wow. A lot of your pranks involve breaking and entering.

    My fav is the one where you guys arranged the contents of your buddy's place on the roof. Did you stick around to see the look on his face (and hopefully to help him put it all back)?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No. We left and he had to replace the items on his own.

      Delete

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT! I wrote this for you.

If you would like to leave a comment, but do not have a Google account just click on the COMMENT AS: dropdown box and choose Name/URL or Anonymous.

But if you choose Anonymous, please let me know who you are unless you really do not want me to know.