Are you a prankster?

[Mikey]

For several years I worked a plainclothes assignment in the police department.  One day a coworker from the office and I had lunch at a local buffet in downtown Long Beach.  This place had good food at a great price and it also had a senor citizen discount, thus it was very popular with Geritol crowd.  As you might then guess most of the people there were pretty straight-laced, however, Long Beach also has a rather large gay population???.and thus this was the perfect audience for my having some fun?.

After we got our food and were seated I noticed a uniformed male co-worker sitting with an attractive women at another table.  Since he was recently divorced, I figured this was the gal he had told me about that he had recently started seeing.  This officer also was a fellow sergeant, and quite a prankster I might add.   

One thing you notice as an officer in uniform is that people are always watching you.  Knowing that I would have an audience, I got up from my table and walked over to this sergeant.  He greeted me as I approached and then I leaned down as if to whisper something in his ear.  He obligingly turned his cheek to me and I planted a big passionate kiss on his cheek.  The look on the faces of the other diners as well as his table guest was priceless.  By the way, he eventually married that gal and to this day he loves to tell that story.

So that?s my story.  What have you done as a prank?

[barb]

That is too funny!

Years ago my best friends and I used to play tricks on each other all the time.  Once I had a bumber sticker made up for one of them that read, "Gay and proud of it".  (don't worry, I have nothing against gays!)  She had that bumper sticker on her car for a month before I finally told her about it.  She hadn't noticed, but she HAD noticed people would pull up to her and stare; and she couldn't understand why.   

About a half hour ago I played a little trick on one of the members of my mom's board.  I'm admin there, and I put a little image in her signature, poking fun of her for something she said today.  I love being naughty, .

[mascot]

One of my co-workers had an Alf doll that he was rather fond of.  George was a huge 300+ lb guy, but had a heart like a lamb.  So one day it was getting late and everyone else had left for the day, leaving me and George there alone.  I walked up behind him with my igloo cooler open and slipped old Alf right in and closed the lid.  He didn't notice a thing, and we exchanged small talk and I left.  I felt pretty sly.

Then next day, George was looking all over for Alf, and seeing as how he got in earlier than most people he was rather perplexed.  I decided I would monopolize on my prank and write a ransom note, but I had to disguise my handwriting so I wrote it upside down.  The ransom note showed up in his 'in' basket when he wasn't looking, and coupled with the fact that I was the biggest prankster in the department almost everyone suspected me as the culprit.

However, there was an eye witness that cleared my name as it was being drug through the trenches of the rumor mill.  Yes, George himself told everyone that Alf was still there when I left the day before, and that the ransom note was not in my penmanship, therefore I was immediately dismissed as a suspect.  The gears started turning, and I was soon concocting elaborate plans for further ransom requests, and showing that I meant business.

A few days later, a photo showed up in George's 'in' basket with Alf run up the flag pole out in front of the building.  So they knew he had to be close by.  A few days later another ransom note showed up with a picture of Alf holding a current newspaper.  The story was going around and around and just about everyone knew that Alf had gone missing.  Everyone was enjoying the pictures and the notes, each one requesting an odd amount of money; $18.63 one time, to hundreds of thousands the next time.

Then an outside letter was mailed to George and he received it through our mail department.  It was another ransom note, but this time Alf was strung up with rope at all fours, tied to the back door of my garage with duct tape over his mouth and a bandana over his eyes.  A single word had been scribbled below his body in cigarette ashes.  "Help" was the only request this time, and the postmark on the envelop was from my brother's home in Pennsylvania, all the way on the other side of the country.  George cracked up about that, and showed everyone he could think of, including me.  I pretended to be in the dark and said something like, "what kind of person would go through all that trouble?".  George told me I was boring, and he actually got in a little trouble over all the disruptions to work, so I backed off for a while.

The story eventually faded, and Alf was packed away in a box somewhere when I left the company and moved out of town.  I can't remember what happened to Alf, but he moved with me a couple times and I kept telling myself to send another ransom note, but never got around to it.  Eventually, I found myself back in town and thought it was a riot when I had gone to a friend's home for dinner one night and she told me the story of Alf and how he'd been kidnapped and dragged across the country.  She had worked there, but I found it amazing that three years later people were still talking about it.

I never did tell anyone I kidnapped Alf as it was the master prank that still has people baffled more than ten years later.  I work for that company again now, and I can't remember when someone talked about Alf last, but I know it has been one of those "remember when..." stories often told at company functions. 

I never told him I was the kidnapper, but knowing George he was happier with all the stories he could tell than actually having Alf back.  Even his wife, whom he met years after the kidnapping, knew about Alf and his strange disappearance.

Sadly, George passed away a year ago from complications after a botched back surgery, and he went to his final resting place with the mystery still unsolved.  Perhaps one day I will get another chance to tell him, so we can both have a laugh over it.  But not too soon, I hope.

RIP George...if I knew how to send you another ransom note...I would do it, because I know you'd get a kick out of it and have the other angels laughing their wings off.

[Mikey]

Barb: That's about as bad as walking around with a sign that someone put on your back....LOL

Mike: That's a great prank and story.  If you come to the party at Jerry's I'll be sure to keep an eye on you

[Joyce]

Me a prankster?

Just a little bit.

But I once had a perfect opportunity for a revenge prank.
I was out with the girls one night, recently broken up with a long term boyfriend.
He had started dating again, and the girl was insanely jealous of me, besides being a control freak.
She had already keyed my brand new GMC Jimmy a few weeks before, just for being at the same bar as she was. My ex ended up paying for the paint job, since so many witnesses saw her key my car.

Anyway, at that point I thought all was well and done with.

So I was out with my girlfriends and my ex shows up with his buddies...without thenewcontrolfreakjealousgirl.
He tries to buy me a drink a half dozen, times, and I say no.
(NO WAY, she might show up!)
The bartenders (both friends of mine) are getting annoyed from going back and forth between ex and me, and one finally says, 'just take a beer from him Joyce and he'll stop bugging you'. So next time ex asked to buy me  a beer, I said yes.
And then he starts talking to me and trying to pick me up.
Says he is done with thenewcontrolfreakjealousgirl.
He wants me back. (he is very buzzed and swaying) I dont fall for it.
Been there, done that many times with him.
I tell him to go jump in the bay. (which is right outside the door of the bar which is also a Marina) So he kinda leaves me alone, plus my bartender friends told him to lay off.
So then he and his friends start to throw ice cubes and stuff from their drinks across the bar at us. My girlfriends are getting pissed. It's about to get ugly if my girls get pissed.

All of a sudden thenewcontrolfreakjealousgirl storms in through the door, doesn't spot me (whew) and sees my ex. (uh-oh) Throws herself at him howling 'how could he have left her home waiting', that 'he was supposed to pick her up earlier', blah-blah-blah at the top of her lungs. She is literally beating on him. Me and my girlfriends are in hysterics across the bar from it all. (not to mention everyone in the bar was watching in shock) It's obvious he dumped her for the night, stood her up, was lying to me. Then he picks her up, flips her over his shoulder and starts hauling her off. That is when she spots me. I wink.

So there I am sipping on the beer he bought me,
watching her hanging upsidedown, truly flipping out after seeing me,
and I just couldn't let him leave without calling out (LOUDLY) and thanking him for the beer.
   

[CT]

Years ago I worked nights in a hospital that had a huge linen closet at the far end of a dark hallway. We had a very straightlaced, uptight nursing assistant that was seriously afraid of dead people (I didn't know it at the time). I unscrewed the light in the linen closet, laid down on the wooden shelving that held the linen (the empty side), took my shoes and socks off, pulled my pants leg up and put a toe tag on my big toe and covered up everything but my hand and my foot with a sheet. My charge nurse sent the nursing assistant down to get linens. The nursing assistant was grumbling about the light being off and went back to get a flashlight. She came back, turned on the flashlight and I moved my cold hand (I had been holding an ice pack) across her leg at the same time. She took one look, screamed, stumbled back and fell out of the closet. Of course everyone came running including the house supervisor who was making rounds. All three of us were suspended for 3 days but it was so worth it.. she finally forgave us but it took a long time..

[karen J]

Blind Too, what a funny/sad story.

My college friend, Doug, liked to keep his car meticulously clean. It was not a fancy car ('76 Nova?), but it was very clean. He was always taking it to the station and vacuuming, washing, etc. Never any mess in his car at all. He would freak if someone dropped a French Fry.

So, one day we bought a nice hunk of limberger cheese and hid it well, in the folds of the passenger seat.

Weeks went by.  Poor Doug.

After he found out what we did, got rid of the cheese, and fumigated his car, he ended up driving over a piece of plastic garbage bag that attached itself to the underside of the car, melted, and smelled pretty bad. Unfortunately, that melted plastic smell never went away. Poor Doug!

[Viv]

When I was in High School many a moon ago, we had an assembly every morning. The Head Master used to sweep the curtains on the stage aside and make a grand entrance right through the middle. One year on April Fools Day, my friend and myself arrived at school very early and sewed them up. The whole school was there as usual waiting for the 'Grand Sweep'. The result looked like something out of a cartoon!!

He looked quite dishevelled and very red faced coming on stage through the side trying to compose himself.

[barb]

These are funny!

Kay, your story reminded me of something I did as a child.  My step-mother used to wake my step-brother and I every morning for school.  First she would flip on the light in the hallway outside our doors; the hallway was pitch black otherwise.  She had a fear of burglars.  One morning I was awake early, and heard the alarm go off.  I got out of bed and stepped into the hallway, and just into the living room.  I then reached into the hallway and put my hand over the light switch.  She walked by me in the dark and went to turn on the light, and there was my hand over the light switch.  She screamed so loud!  I still laugh when I remember that.  I guess I started my little pranks at a young age.   

[Mikey]

Note to file: Do not play a prank on any of the women members of American Ponders.  Payback will likey be a bi...

[Krista]

Note to file: Do not play a prank on any of the women members of American Ponders.  Payback will likey be a bi...

PMPROFLAMO


I'll never tell Some of my friends here might so perhaps I"d better stop drinking around them

[mascot]

these are funny pranks.  I remember a long running prank I pulled on my father.  I should start by saying he was a very violent and abusive man, and every day he looked for a reason to beat someone up.  When I was a teenager, nothing would have made him happier than to find drugs or cigarettes hidden away.

I started to suspect that he was rifling through my things when I started to find things out of place.  So as a test I started to set things in position so that an opened drawer or movement could easily be detected.  Once I established the intrusion, I began to make it look like I was hiding things.  I covered small boxes in paper that were the size of a cigarette pack and of couse he couldn't do a thing to me because they weren't cigarettes.  Then I started hiding things conspicuously and waiting for him to take the bait.

One month he had grilled me asking if I was using drugs, I'm 45 now and still have never used them, but he was sure that I was an addict at 14.  So I had the top bunk bed with a book case at the headboard.  Lined in the bookcase were old, hardback Hardy Boys books and I started folding small pieces of paper and jamming them in between the pages or a couple books.  Then I pulled one book out a little further and shoved folded paper between pages making it look like I didn't put my "drugs" all the way back in.  He checked every single time and of course never found anything, and he didn't want to say a word because then he'd have to admit he was snooping.

I also started to place a bean bag from our "Toss-Across" game on the inside door handle to my bedroom. When he turned the knob, the bean bag would fall and of course he had no idea where it came from so he left it on the floor pulled up against the door thinking that's where I put it. 

Growing up with that jerk was miserable, but man did I get a kick out of knowing that my "worthless ass" was pulling a fast one on him on a weekly basis!

Why, one time he told me to shut my mouth while we were eating and when he turned around I opened my mouth three times!    Actually, that one is true....haha

[karen J]

Blind Too, That's interesting. I always thought my Mom suspected me of such things as well. She is now 76 years old, and I've a feeling that she STILL suspects me of such things! Funny as it is, I think drugs should be legalized to remove the profit motive- but I have no intention or desire to ever take them. My Mom, of course, sees my position as "guilty". Strange.

[livetogarden]

These pranks were actually my dad's. He loved to pull things on people.
There was 1 guy who worked with him that drove the rest of the workers nuts. As soon as the clock hit 5 PM this guy would nearly knock people over as he grabbed his metal lunch box off the work bench and take off for the door. Then he would hop in his car and try to beat everyone else out of the lot. One day my dad nailed his lunch box to the work bench. When the guy grabbed it to 'run' he got a huge surprise. My dad said he almost pulled his shoulder out of socket. Another time my dad climbed in the guy's car, wired the front doors shut on the inside and then climbed over the seat and exited by the back door. When the guy tried to open the door at the end of the day he couldn't figure out what was going on. My dad said the entire place was cracking up....except this guy of course.
There was another guy who worked with him who bragged about his dog never doing his business in his yard. He always told everyone he had the dog trained to always 'go' in a vacant lot near his home and the dog would always wait until they walked to that lot to do so. One weekend this guy and his wife invited the other employees and their families over for a cook out. My dad found a pile of fake poop at some novelty store. Another guy sidetracked the dog owner so my dad could deposit it near the grill. I was actually there when this happened and the guy was mortified when he spotted it. 
Cath

[barb]

Those are funny, Cath!

Blind 'Too, my father and step-mother were the same way.  I wish I had been as clever as you!

[Mikey]

My former mentor and coworker, Mike, and I often played practical jokes on each other.  We both were assigned to the Training Division of the police academy.  At that particular time a crime scene fingerprint class was being conducted and our storage room was full of latent print kits.  Telephones at the academy then were the old black phones and I took some black fingerprint powder and dusted the earpiece of Mike?s telephone. 

Mike soon returned to the office and I sat anxiously waiting for him to pick up the phone.  Mike was left-handed and the telephone was located on the left portion of his desk.  Soon the phone rang and Mike picked it up and placed it to his left ear.  He then needed to write something down and he transferred the receiver to his right ear as he wrote something down.  I glanced up and I could see a perfect black circle around his left ear.  I could barely contain myself from bursting out laughing.  After he hung up the phone I got up to leave the room and I glanced back to see that his right ear also had a nice black donut circle.

I headed up to the front office and casually mentioned to the lieutenant and the academy secretary that my coworker needs to wash behind his ears a little better.  They both looked at me rather strangely when Mike suddenly walked into the office to use the copier.  Both of them couldn?t contain themselves and they started laughing.  Mike eventually figured it out and without saying a thing to me he went to the restroom and washed his ears.

And yes, about three or four days later it was payback time for me when Mike reeled me in on a prank and I fell for it, hook, line and sinker??.but that?s another story for another day?..

[Krista]

is it another day yet???????

[CT]

Mikey, you and the other pranksters are a bad influence on me. I put KY jelly on the earpiece of the unit clerks phone. It was hilarious to see her face. I expect payback this weekend. 
My friend/coworker came to work with a yellow mask and a white feather boa. She made the mask into a beak, KY'd some of the feathers to her face, dotted her face with yellow marker and announced that she had bird flu and had to go home ..I love my job 
We also have this obnoxious male nurse. He is always telling us "GOOD job team!!".."Way to go TEAM".. We got together and bought some pom pom's and a cheerleaders outfit and put it in his mailbox at work..he was NOT amused    but we were and made sure everyone was around when he found them..
Barb,
   Had I felt your hand on that light switch..well, I would have been out the door in 2 seconds flat 
 

[barb]

 

[Mikey]

Kay: I was about to ask why you had KY jelly at work but you later mentioned the prank on the male nurse.  I was starting to think you must be working at the playboy mansion

Here's another fun telephone prank I've played on poor Mike.  One day I would unscrew the hearing piece of the receiver and take a small piece of cellophane tape and taped it over the listening holes on the inside of the receiver.  This significantly reduces the ability to hear.  Mike would be talking on the phone and I would hear Mike saying, "Huh?  What's that?  Can you speak louder?" etc.   The next day I would remove the cellophane tape from the ear piece portion of the receiver and then I would unscrew the mouth piece of the receiver and tape over the holes on the inside of the mouthpiece and then screw it back on.  Then Mike would be on the telephone and he would practically be yelling into the receiver because the person on the other end was having a hard time hearing him.   Mike was easily stressed and after three or so days of these phone problems one day he ripped the phone cord out of the wall and launched the entire phone across the room, past another sergeant's head , and out his open window all while yelling a bunch of expletive deletives about the telephone equipment.  This other sergeant leaned back in his chair, took a puff from his cigar (we could still smoke then) and calmly said, "Having a bad day are we Mike?"

As I recall I also paid for that prank also but again that's another story for another day...