BS: School Pranks?

Subject: School Pranks?
From: bill\sables
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 05:01 PM

I was just reading in another thread abour Trevor hollowing out a piece of chalk and fitting matches into it and when the teacher used it on the blackboard the matches struck. It reminded me of the day when our woodwork teacher, who used to wear rubber overshoes when there was snow on the ground, came into school and left his overshoes in the store cupboard. About half an hour before home time we layered quite a quantity of glue inside and the teacher sliped them on and went home. Next morning we all got caned.
Did anyone else do something they shouldn't to theit teacher?
Bill

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: MichaelAnthony
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 05:06 PM

I hid the class once, or rather twice.

The chemistry teacher was usually late, and I wrote on the blackboard "1st period to the library" (sometimes the space program would have something televised, so this was believable). I erased the message before he came in.

It worked. I did it again for 3rd period (my own class) and got identified. The teacher was very upset -- "It was funny the first time."

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 06:13 PM

I don't do things like that.............(hhrruummpphh, says all of Mudcat)

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: rangeroger
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 06:32 PM

My High school English class also "hid the class" once.We were all in class but the teacher was late. As it was a ground floor classroom we all went out the windows and hid in the shrubbery.The teacher came into the room,looked around highly perplexed and then left.We all jumped back through the windows and were in our assigned seats when she returned with the principal.

rr

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: bill\sables
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 06:42 PM

I remember one very cold winters day (Cold UK standards not USA) when someone threw an icy snowball and it hit the French teacher (who was a pillock anyway) right on the ear. When we were lined up to go back into school he demanded to know who threw the snowball and nobody owned up so he caned the whole school. There was some consolation because his ear was glowing red while he caned us and it only warmed our hands anyway. He was absent for the rest of the week with a muscular problem in his fight arm from the canings. He never tried caning the whole school again.

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Metchosin
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 06:42 PM

I actually mentioned this on another thread before but its worth repeating....or is it..?

When my husband was young (13 or 14) he and a few friend were hanging out in front of the school at lunch, when they noticed a very large rock on the ground before them. They contemplated it for awhile, trying to decide where such a large rock, so out of place, could have come from and decided, after some deliberation, that perhaps it had fallen from the sky. It seemed to be such a dilemma to all concerned, that my husband decided if it had indeed fallen from the sky, they should send it back from whence it came, so that they could get on with more important things.

My husband picked up the rock and heaved it up and back over his head and instead of the thump that they had expected, as it landed on the flat roof of the school, a loud crash of glass was the result, for the rock had plummeted through a skylight. They carefully removed themselves from the vicinity doing their best to look nonchalant.

It was not until thirty years later, when he was working with an old school mate that he found what had truly happened to the rock. The friend recounted how, while he was working on a drafting project at lunch one day, a very large rock had came hurtling through the skylight and had landed on the desk in front of the dreaded Mr. Bagshaw, the bane of their young existence and that the old boy was shook up for weeks afterward. My husband responded, "Yeah? weird how things fall from the sky sometimes."

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: SINSULL
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 07:49 PM

Like Sorcha I never did anything bad except the gum thing recounted on another thread. My younger brother was always up to mischief however. He had a teacher with a hearing aid and actually went up to him mouthing a question - no sound. The poor man kept turning up his hearing aid and fiddling with the batteries. He finally gave up and said "Speak louder!" John did and nearly killed him.
Just remembered antoher - I guess I did do one or two things. I attended an all girl high school. Saran wrapping the toilet and then putting the seat down ensured an embarrassing mess whether you sat or not. Vaseline on the seat only worked for sitters.

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 11:25 PM

...you shouldn't bake pepper into biscuits in Home Ec class and give them to your math teacher, like 2 girls did when I was in 8th grade.........2 weeks later, after careful preparation, the girl who was the prime pepper baker got sent off to another room to borrow the 'paper strecher',and then to another room, and so on...she must have been routed to 8-10 different rooms by teachers in on the joke before it dawned on her...

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 06:42 AM

Where do I start

The usual mundane putting chalk inside the black board rubber, hiding the waste paper bin in the roof of the classroom (we had a poystyrene roof tiles), drawing a chalk line behind the dangling cord of the overhead projector screen that hangs down in front of the blackboard. But on a different level....

Mixing concentrated sulphuric and hydrochloric acid in a test tube and placing a length of rubber tubing in it then inserting a lighted spint down the middle which explodes and shoots the rubber tubing onto the ceiling where it sticks!

Making Potassium iodide crystals and sprinkling them on the floor so that loud explosions occur when anyone walks on them.

Taking the fuse out of the overhead projector plug so that the teacher thinks the machine is broken and has to go and find another.

Devising a system with farmers children whereby 4 piglets are taken to school marked with the number 1, 2, 3 and 5 and setting them loose.

Setting up a walkie Talkie under the teachers desk and then giving them instructions as they write on the board.

Is this why I didn't take up teaching as a career!!!

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 07:44 AM

I love the piglets one!!!

We set a trap for the blind german teacher once (string round the chairs etc) - it was hilarious until she started walking towards it & we suddenly realised what a totally nasty thing it was that we had done.
Luckily we dismantled it in time. It was a very valuable lesson though....... sometimes the thought is funnier than the deed

Kris

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: GUEST,Matt_R
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 08:11 AM

I only went to school for 2 years, so no. But back in '98, my Biology II teacher at Community College let me play "The Bright Field" and "Neil Gow's Farewell to Whiskey" on fiddle in front of the class. I'm not sure how much the other students appreciated it...

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: SINSULL
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 08:40 AM

Matt! Go out right now and stick a wad of gum on someone's door bell. It will ring forever. Get away quick. you will feel so much better.
Aunt Mary

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: GUEST,Matt_R
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 08:41 AM

But I LIKE my teachers!

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: tiggerdooley
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 08:46 AM

I don't know how I discovered I could do it, but my friends used to make me look our Maths teacher in the eye and utter some kind of curse under my breath. It never did him any harm, but ALWAYS gave him an attack of clumsiness, like he'd forget what he was saying or drop his chalk. I don't know if I can still do it, 'cos I've got too much of a conscience now, but whenever you have an attack of clumsiness, look someone in the eye and tell them it's their turn. Now that DOES work!!!

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: GUEST,micca at work
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 09:15 AM

for a teacher of "regular habits"
enter the staff toilet and his/her preferred cubicle, drain cistern abd replace water with 4 litres of 20 vols Hydrogen Peroxide, drain u bend in toilet add 2 liters of 0.1M Silver nitrate followed by 2 litres of 2 M Sodium Hydroxide solution . this precipitates finely divided silver oxide..
when Toilet is flushed
4l of peroxide + silver oxide = 80 l of oxygen gas
Contents of toilet returned like Great geyser at Yellowstone usually to ceiling,, and stalagtites formed..
Warning, you Have to Really HATE the teacher...

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: AggieBethie
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 09:26 AM

That's awful Uncle Micca... I love it! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Lady McMoo
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:16 AM

Oh there are many...!

One of my favourites was when we were having a flobbing competition during break out of the first floor classroom window. It was your's truly's turn and I took the customary preparations and long run up before releasing my effort. It unfortunately was a dud and descended straight down landing in the centre of the bald patch on the art master's head as he was passing below. He was very fast indeed turning the corner and running up the stairs but, fortunately, not quite as fast as we were in vacating the classrom!

mcmoo

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Gervase
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:34 AM

Apart from the chemical warfare against the tea-run cartel, there was the black boot polish on the housemaster's bog seat.
He knew he had a black arse. We knew he had a black arse. He knew that we knew that...etc. And he didn't say a word!

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: MMario
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 11:11 AM

lessee - we put the principal's volkswagon on the roof of his office; painted the graduating class's chairs for graduation with potassium iodide crystals; (or whatever it is you get when you mix iodine and ammonia)

swapped speeches for graduation day - (had to have pre-approved speeches - none of us read the "approved" ones) - played volleyball with paper wads WHILE the substitute teacher was teaching - (not easy!)

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: SINSULL
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 11:26 AM

Uncle Micca - Classic. I love it. Have taken down the recipe and will put it to good use - maybe at the Getaway.

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Trevor
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 11:53 AM

We had a history teacher who used to walk around the room talking about whatever the subject was with his eyes closed. It was always a good laugh when we all swapped seats as he was talking - every time he opened his eyes the baddies would be in a different place. He would always take his watch off and put it on his desk, every so often returning to pick it up and squint at it - until, of course, he discovered it had been sellotaped to the desk.

Incidentally, he was also our form master for most of the time I was at school, and we thought he was great.

I also once swopped the sign on the door of the headmaster's study with the one from the library, on the second day of a new year. 'The Boss' was inundated by new boys who had been told, naturally, that they should just walk straight in if they wanted anything from the library.

In't skool grand?

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Micca
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 12:26 PM

Aggie and Sinsull, great care is needed as the timing from Flush to explosion varies but can be as short as 15-30 seconds or less......a more devastating version of this was when someone stole 50 gms of Sodium metal from a lab and panicked when it was announced over the PA ,they tried to flush it down a toilet..... it left a 3 fooot wide 5 foot deep hole where the Toilet HAD been
BTW the "Potassium " Iodide mentioned above is more correctly Nitrogen tri-iodide, stable when wet but VERY shock sensitive when dry...

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Rollo
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 08:50 PM

We didn't have to do many pranks in the physical science labs, because of our teacher... dear ole chap, he was just too kind-hearted to get along with pupils... and he was a real bugger with experiments... I remember the day when he dropped and broke first the fog chamber then the big plug-it-together-electro-motor. recently he had also used up all the little lamps, and we heard his colleague coming from the other lab into the storage, find the remnants of the motor and shout through the closed door: "Mr. H. come here RIGHT NOW!" Later in the day this colleague told us: "I am REALLY pissed... seems to last long today..." Well, I needn't to explain what he did with the great basin. Or what happened with the rubin laser. Unforgotten the day when he wanted to show us a weak alpha ray preparate and the geiger detector didn't make "Click... Click..." but "Scrchhhhhhhhhh...". Mr. H. looked to the sign and was so shocked finding the strong gamma ray preparate he was not able to srew it into it's leaden safety cannister. We were innocent. Really. he did this all alone. But his greatest moment was when he wanted to explain fuses to my brother's class. This genius of a teacher went out to the store and came in a moment later with ALL fuses from the fuse box. Shortly after another colleague came in and asked "Do you know why we have a failure on the whole floor? It's REALLY bad timing, for we just have general degree exams next room, and the experiment broke down in the middle of the progress..." Mr. H. looked at the heap of fuses... "Oh, ah, well... " And in the end he and his colleague stood in the store with flashlights and couldn't find the right places for the right fuses. There was no light, of course. The other teacher only shooked his head and sighed. Poor Mr. H., for he was a teacher that really loved his pupils.

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:22 PM

well, here's another one where the teacher won...

I had a shop class from Mr. Fields, in the days when a spat from a paddle was NOT banned in the US..*grin*...and Mr Fields was asst. principal, and official disiplinarian for the boys. He was, however, a man of good cheer and a wicked sense of humor...though his tolerance for nonsense was limited.

When shop class was almost over, the guys would watch the clock, which would click each new minute with a little back-twitch a half-second before clicking to the new position, and everyone would be poised to zoom for the door as the bell rang. So...one day Mr. Fields had had enough, and said..(as he wandered over to the door and looked casually out the little window).."Ok, you guys are in SO much of a hurry to get out of here...lets make it interesting...today, the LAST one out the door gets one spat of the paddle"...and he turned, smiling, as the twirled his favorite wooden paddle on its leather strap......then he stepped to one side and waited...and the clock went.."ker---"..and before it went "---click", 18-20 boys made a mad rush and.....piled up like cattle against the door which Mr Fields had carefully locked with the deadbolt as he looked out the window!

He was bent over laughing, and we took a few seconds to realize that he had gotten us ALL with one trick! Next day, we watched him like a hawk, but he had made his point....

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:54 PM

oh! just remembered another one....

Mr Fields was also lunchroom proctor..general maintaining of order. The rule was..NO food to ne taken out of the lunchroom. One day, Mr Fields saw a kid buy an ice-cream bar and slip it into his shirt pocket under a jacket. So, he met the kid just as he left the room and stopped him...

"Oh, John...I was wondering how that new project is coming"

"Oh,,,uh...fine, Mr. Fields..but I gotta go.."

"Well you know, I have some ideas you might want to consider..."

"Um...sure, Mr. Fields...later maybe?"

"But, John...it is due soon, and if we could spend a few mintes now......."(blah, blah, blah...for 10-12 minutes...till he was SURE that ice cream bar was good and soggy)...then he let him go with no mention of the offense!

....we didn't play many pranks on Mr. Fields

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 11:33 PM

I'm only going to mention this one because I wasn't involved. A chemistry teacher known as "Wild Bill" Brooks once opened the door to his classroom and found all the students lying on the floor and the smell of gas in the air; one of the Bunsen burners was hissing but not lit. He instantly picked up a chair and threw it through the window with a great crash. At that point all the students stood up. The foolish ones laughed at Mr. Brooks, while the more intelligent ones felt like fools...

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Extra Stout
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 01:56 AM

My seventh grade teacher had a stuffed pigeon in her classroom, we all spent a good half-hour snickering and choking after recess one day, waiting for her to notice that a dead starling from the schoolyard had joined her pet on its perch. She screamed. I borrowed a garter snake from a terrarium in my sophomore biology class and gently guided it up into my necktie. It was quiet and happy for quite a while. I was angelically minding my own business when my tie rose and waved itself about. My lab partner screamed. Real loud. I had to put the snake back, but Mrs. Meade was laughing too hard to take further measures.

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Banjer
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 03:49 AM

In Junior High School (nowadays known as middle School)we always complained that the facilities in some of the bathrooms didn't work properly. Nothing seemed to be done and after several weeks of frustration at having only two operating restroom in a two story building which normaly had eight restrooms it was decided that action was necessary. You have no idea what damage four M-80s (each equivalent to 1/4 stick of dynamite) flushed from the upstairs commodes can do. I had no idea....anyhow, it did get the desired results...a repair crew was on scene within the hour and from then on all systems worked well. It took them about a week and a half to replace some of the pipes but well worth the effort!

As for hiding classes...I do seem to recall one incident where an enterprising student went from room to room during lunch one day writing various directions on blackboards. Things such as...meet in room 101 after lunch...meet on the volleyball court...etc. The end result was about ten classes wandering around trying to find their assigned locations...pure bedlam!!! But such fun!

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 04:16 AM

We turned all the desks to face the other way and put the teachers desk at the back so it looked like the whole room was the wrong way round. Mr Flatley (our maths/form teacher at the time) took it all his stride though - carried on as if nothing had happened including chalking on the back wall as if there was a blackboard there!

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: GUEST,micca at work
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 07:33 AM

The student who filled my lab coat pockets with shaved ice from the ice machine while I was carrying a large and heavy piece of equipmentso I had to walk a long way with my pockets full of melting ice,then made good their escape( so they thought), and trotted down the three flights of stairs to leave the building but didnt know I knew the exact moment to release an egg from the balcony to hit them exactly on top of the head as the crossed the lobby, The egg had been "blown out" and the contents replaced with glycerol, (no stain and mess and washed off easily , but the same feel).I will treasure forever the expression on her face as she looked up at me...

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Naemanson
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 07:58 AM

Matt, Lesson Number One in practical jokes is that you rarely do it to someone you don't like. The target should be a friend. So if you like your teachers you should go right out and put chewing gum on those doorbells. *BG*

I don't have any stories from school. But I do have one from work. I am guilty of pulling the all time long distance joke of all time (with the exception of any pulled during the space program)

Several years ago we successfully finished a difficult construction project and my boss, a Navy lieutenant, was required to provide a detailed report for the Pacific Division's headquarters. He was forced to leave Maine in February and travel to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to do this.

Now, our office was at the height of our practical joke period. In the morning you had to approach your door with all the caution of a bomb squad. Dot-mines were common. You would open your door and be showered with paper dots. At one point the boss had been kicked out of a camp ground in Rhode Island. When he came in to work after that vacation he found his office had been transformed into a campsite complete with pine boughs, a dome tent, and a fire place with cooking gear.

Anyway, he headed out for Hawaii on a Saturday. Before he left he visited the office and wreaked havoc on my area. The chair was affixed to my desk, one drawer was screwed shut, every book had been liberally sprinkled with dots, epoxy cement had been poured into my pencil container, and there was a dot-mine over my door.

The piece de resistence took place on Thursday. I had a pair of shoes I kept in the office. On Thursday they were nailed to the floor. When I finally got them up there was a note underneath IN THE BOSS' HANDWRITING. I was impressed. It was a long distance joke that I had to repay.

My vengeance is another tale.

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 08:12 AM

Neamanson - surely it is time now to unburdon yourself of that second tale.....

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 08:16 AM

Work ones I have heard from my mate Mike, who makes BIG gearboxes for a living, are welding the steeltoes of safety boots to the cast iron heating pipes (weird), replacing hameroid cream with fiery jack (ouch) and stretching cling film over the toilet bowl (yuk).

Watch out drivers of any wagons with Eaton gearboxes!

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 08:20 AM

The simplest, and one of the most effective, was doing nothing. We had an easily-frightened maths teacher and evryone played up in her classes. The best thing was to smile sweetly and oh-so-innocently at her, row by row, until the whole room was grinning and smiling and she was getting REALLY paranoid. She would spend the whole lesson wondering what we had planned.
The headmaster eventually told us to cut it out and behave ourselves in her classes. But we did like her, it's just that she was a good target. And we never meant any harm by sellotaping the chairlegs to the table.

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Noel P
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 10:48 AM

We had a new extention built onto our school and all new classrooms got new furniture. Now the chairs were not the best and if one leaned backwards the 2 back legs would bend at the welded joint. You could bend them back into place just once and had to be careful not to break them off completely. Of cource there was one of these chairs in the classroom and we had a teacher who was strict but who usually leaned backwards on his chair. Chairs swopped. As he leaned back the legs broke and he was left sitting on the floor with just his head above the table. He turned beetroot red and the whole class just erupted but nobody said a thing. I still laugh about it!

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 11:30 AM

Didn't anyone else shoot rubber bands (from their braces) out of their mouths at the teachers?

We had a teacher who got so relaxed one day in class grading papers (while we all had silent reading time) that she actually lit up a cigarette. It took her a long time to realize it was inappropriate... no one said a word, but we were all grinning so wide I think she never got control of that room back again.

I used to steal the call slips from the attendance office-- the pink ones even more powerful than hall passes-- the ones teachers and administrators would use to request that a student leave class and come here or there to see them. (I was a very good forger apparently too.) One of our crowd would take the chance of being late to the first class and use the first slip to go call a pal out of another class, then go on to class and be called out from there by the pal, with the next slip. We could get everyone out that way and spend the day off premises.

To get back to classes the next day one had to provide parental proof of illness or other worthy excuse. So the next day I would write everyone either a parent's excuse slip or else I would write up the yellow slip the attendance office would issue upon receiving the parental excuse-- so we could all get back into homeroom the next day.

I was also the one who tended to have the use of a car for the day. Off-premises hijinks could include going out for breakfast, and the restaurant loved our song parodies so much they never reported us. Or we might go visit O'Hare Airport for the day and sneak on as many parked airplanes as possibe, doing a treasure hunt for magazines and barf bags as proof of entry. You could really practice your lying skills with those stewardesses and cleaning personnel, who basically didn't give a damn anyway as long as it sounded like a possible reason to get on the plane. Or another favorite was to go to the new Civic Center in downtown Chicago and visit courtrooms and county clerk's offices, and so on, yukking it up wherever we went.

I think my mother never knew that I had learned city driving on my own. Now I think of our daughter driving just to the mall, and can hardly stand the thought.

The workd was a much safer place then of course.

Oh and one day we did a break-and-enter at my locked house while my mom was at work, to watch the soaps. Illicitly in my own house, it was very weird. We left via a window as I recall.

I'm sure other crowds did much worse stuff, but then they always got caught in the attempt or knocked up. We never did.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 11:45 AM

I guess I missed something going to French school... we didn't have any of this great stuff. All we had one year was a chemistry professor who misplaced a decimal point, or something, and put WAY too much of potassium something into the bowl of water. It was just supposed to turn the water pink with either acid or base (can you tell I was a science mahjor?) and when she saw it fizzle, panicked and ran, leaving us there with the explosion. One kid actually teleported out the door in fear - he was outside running back IN before most of us had even hit the floor. Maybe someone did her calculations for her, but nobody took credit, at least...

But here at work, I know there was someone who had a new car, and used to park it across 4 parking places so that nobody would nick it pulling around. (For you brits, in the US you nick a car when you dent it, not when you steal it.) Anyway, somebody from Manufacturing went out there with the shrinkwrapping machine and shrinkwrapped his car. He was afraid to scratch the paintwork and wouldn't use a knife to get rid of the wrapping... so it took him HOURS... but he didn't park across parking places after that!

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 01:35 PM

We used to tease my boss at an arts center. His name was Eddie, yeah the one I invited who only showed up many threads later. We used to talk about his counterpart, an entirely fictitious "Edwina." Well, after he came back from vacation we told him he'd been replaced and invited him in to meet his usurper. There in his chair was the *person* we'd made out of blowing up giant balloons, then throwing clothes and a wig on "her", plus drawing a lascivious face on her. After he got over the shock of still having a job, we had a grand time celebrating with drinks and taking snapshots of Eddie and Edwina in compromising positions.

My sisters, who are identical twins, use to switch classes on their teachers, esp. on April Fool's day. The teachers, even ones who'd known for a long time, could never tell the difference.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: mousethief
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 02:09 PM

I've heard of more than I've pulled off, alas.

My friends who went to school at Cornell U. in the 1950's tell these 2 tales:

1. One guy in the dorm would go out drinking on Friday nights. They always told him, "one day you're going to be so drunk you won't be able to find your room." He laughed at them. So one Friday, just as he left, the whole dorm got into gear. they took his door off the hinges, removed the frame, put studs in the doorway, sheetrocked the studs, taped and mudded the joints, and painted the whole wall. He spent the night in the elevator.

2. The announcements were read from the school radio station studio. They created a tape recording that sounded like announcements at the beginning, then got into the sexual escapades of the dean and other famous on-campus personnel. They started it running, and melted wax into the doorlock.

This from the University of Washington, my alma mater:

3. The guy who was always playing his stereo loud in the wee hours was served his turn when the next-door neighbors wired his speakers to their stereo, and sometime in the middle of the night, played the Star Spangled Banner at full volume. After fiddling furiously with the controls to his stereo, which of course did nothing, he ended up throwing his "bewitched" speakers out the window.

-Alex

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: The Crazy Bird
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 02:20 PM

We, went on a class tour to someplace and had to stay over night.

On the way back, in the middle of no-where (which is really nowhere on a dark, Florida night) three girls told the driver (who was also are English teacher) that they had to "wee!"

Soooo, "are you sure?"

"Yes"

Sooo, he stopped the bus, opened the door, "Make it quick!.."

The girls trooped out, raised their hands over their heads and shouted "WEEEEEEE!!!!!"

Then they got back in the bus without cutting a smile.

Mr. Chisnell chuckled to himself for the next ten, twenty miles.

rgrds CrzyBrd

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: GUEST,Wavestar
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 02:24 PM

Hmm... pranks.

There were the times my brother and I slipped sheets of lead into schoolmates backpacks to see how long it would take them to wonder why they were so heavy... to to drop them abruptly when they tried to pick them up with ease and couldn't.

My entire class once hid from the spanish teacher in our classroom... she came in, and saw a few people - some of the hiding places were very obvious. I, however, was hiding in one of the cubbies (junior high lockers) that didn't face into the classroom, and I was small enough that I fit, and couldn't be seen. She kept asking where I was, and eventually went out of the room to ask about me... at which point I crept out and took my seat. I got a talking to later, though.

In the same school, I made the delightful discovery that our principal was afraid of mice - so I went to the pet supply shop and bought a couple of the very realistic looking toy mice. First, I walked up behind her with it in my hand, tapped her on the shoulder and held out my hand, to watch her shriek and jump backwards... then, for my grand finale, I hid it on her desk, next to her coffee cup, and waited outside her office as she talked to a colleague, and then caught sight of it... I got caught because I was laughing so hard at her scream, but she forgave me.

I did a few things in high school, but usually not in school itself - things like breaking into the old parking garage and flashing lights from the top of it at the passing police cars, or playing mind games with stoned students late at night. My teachers tended to be funnier themselves, like the time my physics teacher was showing us the effect that a strong magnet has on TV screens, and blacked out a chunk of the screen for a week.

My very favourite from that time was adding 'of pancakes' to the lettering on the door of Dartmouth's International House dormitory. I was pleased to find that, years later, when I was hanging out at one of the frats, when tales of practical jokes were being told, that one came up as 'no one knows who did this, but isn't it great?' I was proud to take the credit.

-J

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: mousethief
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 02:36 PM

Oooooh, I forgot the best one, from Queen Anne High School in Seattle.

My buddy Charlie discovered that you could do something with a transistor and a tiny speaker that made a sound like water drip-drip-dripping into a cistern. So he did so, attached it to a solar cell in a nearby basement window, and installed it in the main top-to-bottom air shaft of the school. If you sat in the room next to the shaft, you could hear the irritating drip-drip-drip all period long. Many complaints were lodged, but the janitors could never find the source of the sound.

Years later he met someone at a party who was introduced as having gone to the same high school as he. He asked her if she ever was in room whatever, and she said yes, and he asked if she remembered the drip-drip-drip sound. She said yes. He explained it was his doing. She slapped him.

Later they got married.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Benjamin
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 04:11 PM

That's a funny story Alex! Queen Ann HS has been closed for a long time now. I went to elementry school right across the street (it was a brand new building, opened up when I was in 2nd Grade).

I remember in Middle School health class. We had a substitute teacher while we were learning about birth control methods. We were broke up into groups, each was studing one device/method and would present it to the rest of the class. While she was walking around the class, some students in the group that had birth control cream put some on the teachers chair. She was the only one who didn't know about it by the time she made it back to the desk.

In 8th grade, I was playing around on the Librarian's computer when he was out of the room. I was messing with the controles to the computer when I some how (I can't remember what I did anymore) found that I could set it up so the printer would start printing when he turned his computer off. That was right before Christmas break.

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: bill\sables
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 09:43 PM

One year our class went for a trip to the Yorkshire Dales and while traveling home on a lonely dark road most of the lads wanted to have a pee so the teacher asked the driver to stop the bus and we all trooped out and peed against the side of the low wall at the side of the road. When we had all finished and got back into the bus the teacher decided he had to go as well but, because he didn't want us to see him, instead of using the wall as we had done he climbed over it in the dark and ended up waist deep in a resovoir.

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Gervase
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 06:22 AM

Unfortunately many of the pranks we got up to were rather less good-natured as we got older and more anarchic. The film If was a major influence and we started getting into explosives in quite a major way.
Our sixth form house was a rambling old detached house in the school grounds with a terrace or loggia with a parapet, and I would lounge sullenly on the parapet in an old Army greatcoat trying to read while my best friend did his best to rag me. The crowning glory was when he lobbed a blast bomb at me - a cigar tube filled with talc and a bit of nitro-cellulose - which missed and carthweeled over the ballustrade and down to the fire pool below, where a small knot of squeaking 12-year-olds were being shown where the newts lived
The blast bomb detonated about an inch above the water, soaking and terrifying both the kids and the very new female biology teacher. That was another uncomfortable interview with the house-master and yet another threat of expulsion.
We carried on with the bombs, but with more discretion, trying them out in local woods and over on the sports pitches. Amazingly I've still got both eyes and 10 fingers.
Then there was the time we went down into the bowels of the house and found half a dozen ancient air rifles which had clearly once been used for the shooting gallery at summer fetes and things. These were smuggled out in cricket bags and used for earnest training missions of the with home-made grenades in the local woods, only to be themselves "liberated" by some local kids from where we'd cached them.
Charming little sods, we were!

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Naemanson
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 08:04 AM

Gervase, you only have 10 fingers? What happened to the other 3? *BG*

I guess, in the face of withering disinterest, I'll tell the rest of my story anyway.

When we left off the boss was in Howaii and had somehow managed to nail my shoes to the floor in my office in Maine. I was impressed and also determined to have my revenge. On Thursday afternoon he was picked up by the Army military police as he left the headquarters building. They took him to the MP headquarters and began to grill him about his hit and run accident. He protested his innocence. They explained that they had a description of his car leaving the scene and they pointed to a big dent in the fender. They grilled him for a long time while he continued to claim innocence. Finally they told him he could go. The arresting officer explained that he would have to report the incident when he got back to his command back east. Then he leaned forward and said, "And, Lieutenant, don't ever nail my brother's shoes to the floor again."

The rest of the conversation is not printable.

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: GUEST,Matt_R
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 08:46 AM

Jess...um...where did you get sheets of lead?

At the Newman Center, our priest loves magnets, and he has one of those magnets sets with all the words, so you can write things. Last night I put some together to say "Worship the blood-poundingly sweet luscious goddesses of the Newman". Wonder if they figured out it was me?

--Matt

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Benjamin
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 10:32 AM

Who else would of thought of that Matt?

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 10:37 AM

That's the thing about Newman though-- he is in like company there!

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: School Pranks?
From: Trevor
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 04:37 AM

Thinking about work gags, my favourite was when I 'phoned a colleague' home number and, just before her answering machine cut in, transferred it to her extension. The expression on her face was exquisite as she tried to figure out why her answering machine had telephoned her.