Come you pranksters, fess up!

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Angus McSweeney
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 06:56 PM

I grew up in a quiet town in Iowa. Down in this pastoral park there was an old black train bridge spanning a small creek. It was the perfect easel for all the brilliant kids who loved to spray paint smutty words - you know, every town has a place like that. Well, the first year (high school seniors), my three buddies and I snuck down one night with black paint (the color of the bridge) and painted over all the offending words. The second night, after the paint had dried, we went back down with white spray paint and repainted all the smut - but cleaned it up. Now the bridge said, "Fudge, Gee Whiz, Shucks," etc. We envisioned the local news headline the next day to be "Fort Dodge Terrorized by Puritan Gang".

But that's not the end. The next summer, we chose to do something on a grand scale. We measured the dimensions of the bridge, built stencils over six feet tall, constructed a rope harness so that we could lower a person over the top of the bridge, put two of us in the creek with a ladder so we could climb up and stabalize the lower section of the stencils, and proceeded to paint, in exactly perfect proportion "LIONEL".

Fast forward...that was 1969. At our 20th reunion - it still remained. The city fathers chose to leave it as a landmark...at our 25th, some enterprising young folks had cleaned it up and repainted it - letter for letter using our carefully placed lettering.

When I die, this is truly my legacy.

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 06:39 PM

well, my father tells of (at age 14-15) disassembling (with friends) a farmers buggy one Halloween, and reassembling it on the roof of his shed ..Then next day, they went round to take a look, and the farmer, seeing some agile youths...*grin*...hired them to get it down again! (he said he always thought the farmer really knew)

But here is someone else's prank that impacted me....first, look at this pic...Morrison Hall, Wichita State Univ

see the clock tower?Note the colors!... (it has 4 faces..can be seen from all over campus). In the mid to late 1960s, that clock was white, with black hands. Some art students found it irreistable, and one morning, all 4 faces were noticed to have Mickey Mouse painted on them!..well, after a few days, it was re-painted....but several months later, it happened again, and again was duly re-painted...When it happened a third time the next year, meetings were held...(Morrison Hall was becoming known as Mickey Mouse Hall)

So..it was decided to paint the face black, and the hands white, making it VERY hard to paint a visable mouse on it. ...BUT..it also made the hands, which were lit at night by curved neon lights mounted around the edge, hard to see at night...so..the electricians were asked to re-mount the neon lights down INSIDE the inset clock faces, where they would illuminate the hands better...

Now, at this time I was working at building & grounds as a student asst. in the carpentry dept....and my boss came up to me and my buddy, Dwain, who also worked there. Boss was grinning...seems the new location of the clock hands was a problem...the minute hand would now not clear the neon tubes! WHAT to DO!??..the answer was..my buddy & I got to go up the inside of that tower..out onto the roof, bearing a BIG pair of bolt cutters...and circumcise all 4 minute hands! Took off about 3"...and for years I kept those aluminum hand tips in my dresser. Ah, memories!!

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Margo
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 05:51 PM

Dwditty: ASPARAGUS??????? It sounds as though you and 'Spaw have gotten cause and effect thing down to an art! (Fart?)

Margarita

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: SeanM
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 04:00 PM

Under the 'destructive and pointless things' pranks department...

This is a true story (I swear!)

Friend of mine's brother was in charge of munitions disposal at a Naval Weapons Station about 2 miles from my High School (Southern California).

Said brother sold said friend about 15 pounds of metallic sodium, which said friend then distributed to all of his friends. Sadly, I had the flu during distribution and didn't get any (Really!).

A season of exploding lockers and trash cans ensued, along with a fire on the front lawn (metallic sodium combusts and/or explodes in contact with water. Crumble sodium, sprinkle on lawn shortly before the sprinklers come on...)

The last straw was when some genius dumped about a full pound block in to the pool. It emptied a large amount of the water out of the pool, cracked the bottom, and caused an evacuation.

The wages of sin were fierce... the school admin launched an investigation, found out who was distributing, and searched all of his friend's lockers. Anyone found with sodium was expelled, and a few were brought up on criminal charges.

Tonight on Mudcat... WHEN PRANKS ATTACK!

M

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: WyoWoman
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 03:43 PM

When I was at church camp at the age of 13, the boys played pranks on us incessantly. I couldn't get any of the girls to join me in retaliation until the final night when one other girl joined me. We slipped into the boys' dorm during the dinner hour and put Saran Wrap across all the toilets. We also put vaseline on the toilet seats. We short-sheeted about a dozen beds before the dinner bell rang and we had to high-tail it outta there. At bedtime we were most gratified to hear much commotion coming from the boys'dorm.

In college, the same thing happened -- after repeated hassles from the guys in the dorm across the quad, I finally sneaked into the boys' dorm -- an offense that could get one kicked out of school at that time -- went to the top floor and the started pulling fire alarms as I went down the 12 floors of stairs.

(Irresponsible, I know. However, they had been doing it to us all summer, just to see all the girls gather on the quad in their nighties...) At any rate, this night the girls were ready and were standing around applauding when the guys started stumbling out in their little jockey shorts.

I was, briefly, a hero. Er, heroine.

WW

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: dwditty
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 03:32 PM

As a prank only funny to adolesent boys, we would sneak into the classroom before class and urintate on the hot raditors, making sure the door was closed when we left. By the time class started, the stench was unbearable (particularly if we had asparagus the night before). By the time class was half way through, the temperature would be sub-freezing as all the windows were thrown open wide. The teacher would have no choice but to dismiss class early.

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Helen
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 03:30 PM

When I was at university, in the mid 70's, there was one week when student pranks were expected. I had the good fortune to be in a group of people which included a man with a bent for pranks, executed with military precision. He organised about 10 people to act as lookouts at various points so that 2 others could paint two little strokes of paint on a billboard sign which is lit up and visible for at least half a mile down a long street.

We have a pest control company called Flick and their billboard sign was just that one big word with letters at least 3 feet high. The painting squad just joined up the bottom of the "l" with the bottom of the "i" and joined up the dot of the "i" to its vertical stroke, making the naughty "f" word. It was there for at least 2 weeks. I don't think most people even looked at the sign because it had been there, unchanged, in the same place for decades. I still laugh about that.

Helen

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: MAG (inactive)
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 03:26 PM

New England must breed 'em; my oldest sister Susie was voted class clown in high school. Hew best one might have been to cut classes at every opportunity on picture day and manage to get in every club and group picture in her yearbook, including the knitting club, which she wouldn't have touched.

Little me, I was so terrified of my parents' wrath I didn't dare pull stuff, except once I was out joyriding with a couple of buddies -- Pat Bomba and Eddie Willis -- and we ran Pat's car into the mud where it stuck. The guys knew I and they were in for it if my parents found out; they knew my parents, so we were scooping mud away from the car with our bare hands. My parents would not have understood that with TWO guys nothing could have gone on ...

Susie taught me chinese fireman (sorry, that's what we called it then), melon stealing, and lying to the folks about what movie we were going to see. (actually that was blackmail: tell the truth and we can't go anymore.)

boy, this takes me back. My sister susie is gone and I miss her terribly.

MA

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Den
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 03:25 PM

I worked on a building site with some pranksters. They just loved to play tricks on the young apprentices. One of the apprentices had a metal lunch box so one of the tricksters screwed it to the lunch room table. The kid couldn't figure out why he couldn't lift it off the table. It took him quite a while to see the screw in the bottom of his lunch box.

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Walrus
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 02:39 PM

Family legend has it that, when young, two of my uncles managed to "borrow" a couple of live chickens and smuggled them into a cinema showing Hitchcock's "The Birds", releasing them from the balcony at an appropriate point. I leave the results to your imagination.

Walrus

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: bbelle
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 02:38 PM

I was a perfect student and never even skipped school, however, my first job out of college was with the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. It was during the holiday season, December, 1970, when I, and a few cohorts, spiked the water cooler on our floor with vodka. It was a grand time we had for a couple of days and the water coolor ran dry faster than anyone could ever remember ... moonchild

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Margo
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 02:27 PM

Jack, that is great!I'm chuckling as I write. Hey, here's one not for the faint at heart:

My friend's cousin went into the movie theatre balcony with a bag of warm oatmeal. You can see where this is going. Yes, 10 minutes into the show, he made the appropriate heaving noises, and dumped the bag on the poor unsuspecting audience below. It was a real show stopper.

I think the story is funny, but I would never do something like that, and I wouldn't like to be one of the oatmeal recipients.

Margarita

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Jack (who is called Jack)
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 12:45 PM

Gotta stop hitting enter when I want to skip from the ID field to the message field.

Anyway, I have contempated pranks but never executed them.

And this prank that I heard of but never verified assured me that any prank I could think of would be minor league.

For me this is the king of all college pranks, not just outrageous, but subtle and clever.

Apparently a psychology student who had just finished a class on learning and conditioning theory came up with the following idea. He was taking courses over the summer, and every day at 1:00pm he went to the football stadium, put on a vertical black and white vertical striped shirt, blew an athletic whistle, and scattered generous amounts of bird seed at his feet. He did this very often over the summer. When the time the first football game of the season came around, (they traditionally start at 1pm, the time of his feedings), the referees in their striped shirts blew their whistles, and the well conditioned birds, thinking the dinner bell had rung once again, descended on the field en masse, surrounded the gape-mouted officials and proceeded to follow them every where they went.

As the story went, eventually the game had to be called due to excessive birds.

I hope this story is true, but even if apocryphal, it wins.

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: MMario
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 12:42 PM

Heck - I was the sixth in my family to go through the same small New England school system....I wouldn't have had a chance getting away with a prank....but my oldest brother, now THERE was a prankster...

the white phosphorus down the toilet (an open secret - but never confessed to as they had to replace the pipes in most of the wing)

the snowman on the roof of the principals car. and the school - and the fire house and the town stage. (same snowman...it moved each night)

The principal's car on the roof of the school (okay - so I WAS involved with that one. he needed lots of help)

Well. what else is there to do with oneself in a small town?

MMario

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Margo
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 12:27 PM

I guess it runs in the family. My dad can't tell this story without laughing: My father was born and lived in eastern Europe. In a jewish school in Turkey, the rabbi would often fall asleep right after lunch, with his head on the table, beard flowing out over his arms. I guess with the kids doing lessons, he figured he could spare the time........

Any way, my dad said that one day they glued the rabbi's beard to the table. My response was that the rabbi woke up and exclaimed, "It won't be long now........"

Margarita

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Jack (who is called Jack)
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 12:21 PM

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Shimbo
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 11:29 AM

I recall a fellow high school student who would hassle everyone for a drink of their ginger beer (it was an "in" drink at the time). Happens the water of the local river near a sewer outlet was of a similar colour. It didn't kill him, but ever after he gave up greedily gulping down as much as he could before the bottle was recovered.

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 08:23 AM

Never. I was a model student. Truth.

catspaw

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Roger the zimmer
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 04:47 AM

My secondary school had low dais in each classroom that the teacher's desk was one. In those days, post war but Pre-Thatcher we had free school milk. The 1/3 pint bottles were small enough to slip under the dais. After a few days, they'd wonder where the smell was coming from...

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 04:43 AM

I guess I never really did pranks - I'm the kind who always gets caught, so I'd best behave. I have to say, though, that I really enjoyed the MIT Hack Gallery, which chronicles the legendary prianks played at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Mudjack
Date: 23 Jul 99 - 12:05 AM

Margarita,
I already know more about you than I should. The next I see you singing your most serious song, I'm going to have visions of you bowing to your judo instructor, why do you do these things to us? Now everytime I see a trumpet blower, I'm going to imagine the waters flowing and gushing from the the horn.
At a sing (song circle) a participant excused himself to the rest room,leaned his guitar on the chair and went.He returned, sat down and patiently waited for two more songs and came his turn. Raised his guitar and announced his song, key of c and began except his guitar was sourly out of tune thanks to his buddy sitting next to him. He grinned and said "Gotcha"
Mudjack

Subject: Come you pranksters, fess up!
From: Margo
Date: 22 Jul 99 - 11:46 PM

I was reminded in another thread about some of the pranks we played in school. Like the time we filled up the first chair trumpet player's trumpet with water. Gads, he actually blew the water out! It was pretty funny. I used to do a lot of that kind of stuff, how about you?

Margarita