Best tin foil prank... ever? (my pics included)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Breakdown of the scenario:
2 overly mischievous roommates with too much time on their hands. (A)
1 roommate on vacation for a week. (B)
1/2 mile of tin foil purchased from BJ’s. (C)
A+B+C= an entire room covered in tin foil.

The amount of practical jokes my roommates and I played on each other cannot be explained. From Paris Hilton cardboard cut-outs to an entire apartment filled with those little plastic spiders. But this one prank has had to take the record. Dave and I (I’m the one in the green shirt), spend an entire weekends covering everything in our roommate Tim’s room. I mean everything! From his furniture, to his TV, to his floor + ceiling, and even the ceiling fan. We took down his posters and such, to replace over the tin foil for contrast, and we did something else to his bed; but besides those even the doors and windows were not spared.

You can find the pictures here: flickr

I have much more to add to this thread, including the aftermath and where all this tin foil went. But for now you should know that we also replaced all the light bulbs in his room with 100 watt ones… essentially creating the largest Easy Bake Oven you’ve ever walked into.

2

I’m torn between saying this is really, really funny and thinking you have waaaaay too much time on your hands.

I’m leaning towards really, really funny. You have to let us know Roomie’s reaction and any payback.

3

Huh. The tinfoil actually makes the room look larger. I’ll have to remember that.

When I was in university, we filled up a guy’s room with wadded up newspaper that we had saved for the entire year. All the way up to the ceiling. He was not amused.

4

Good to know some things never change. When I was in college in 1970 we filled a room with wadded up newspapers. But the foil is excellent. Nice that these days we can see pictures.

Did you know that if you paint a bar of soap with clear nail polish the recipient will get a hernia trying to work up a lather???

5

The local trick my wife knows about is like this; it works best with small college dorm rooms…

first, blow up balloons. Many, many, many balloons.
Then put some dry ice into a cooler.
Start dropping balloons in.
The balloons will shrink down to nothing when they contact the dry ice.
The first layer may pop; do not let this deter you.
Keep dropping balloons in until they stop shrinking.
Close the cooler.
Start on the next one.
Check back from time to time to see if there has been shrinkage; if so, add more balloons.
Put the coolers in the person’s room, then open them, and leave.
The dry ice will give out eventually, and, when it does, the balloons will re-inflate and fill the room to the ceiling.

6

A couple of years ago, three of my employees spent an entire weekend gift-wrapping another empoyee’s desk and everything on, in and around it; stapler, tape dispenser, telephone, rolodex (including the cards), books, manuals, computer, mouse, keyboard, pencil sharpener, pencils, you name it. It was spectacular. Understand that his position is HUGELY busy, and the poor bastard didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It took him months to finally get everything unwrapped (the phone never stops ringing).

7

Not quite ever, sad to say. For my money, this wins. Close, though. :slight_smile:

(Actually, I’d say Chefguy’s coworkers may win, as it’s pretty much the same thing, but gift wrap is probably harder to work with than foil.)

8

bigbabysweets2000, if you have any tinfoil left over from this endeavor, please tell me you’ll make some hats out of it and strew them about Tim’s room too. One can never have too many tinfoil hats, after all.

9

In the early sixties I was assigned to Midway Island. Married personnel had to go on a waiting list for housing and it took 3-4 months to get an apt. It was traditional for your co-workers to prank your quarters on the day your spouse arrived. I thought I’d foiled them, I made sure I had all the keys (I thought) and I stayed at the apt. until the last possible minute before going to meet the plane. When I got her back to the place all seemed well, until she opened a cupboard and discovered a wild eyed Gooney bird, there were several. They are quite quiet in a dark space, but anxious to escape when the doors are opened. We finally got them outside and I took her upstairs to see the bedrooms. I tried to open the M/bedroom door, only to discover the entire room was filled w/ a weather balloon. I took something out of my pocket, maybe a pocket knife I don’t remember, and punctured the balloon. My wife was wearing a black dress and weather balloons have talc inside, to keep them from drying out or sticking together, not good for a black dress. There were several other little surprises. Those guys had a well executed plan, because I was only gone from the apt. for about 30-40 minutes.

10

Not tin foil, but I pranked my now husband pretty good when we were in college. While he was in class (on his birthday) I wrapped his entire car in yarn; covering all the doors and windows. I then tied a tiny pair of manicure scissors to the door handle and left. I’m very sorry now I didn’t get pictures. He only had about 10 minutes to get to the off-campus theatre for his next class, so he cut the windows clear and cut away enough yarn to get the door open; then drove it covered in yarn.

Heeheehee.

11

Your bed would be so full of shreaded tin foil, like those Chistmas tree icicles. Not that I want to give anybody any ideas…

12

Actually, this gets beaten by the guy I saw on “I’ve Got A Secret” tonight. He wrapped his friend’s (for whom he was house-sitting for a week) ENTIRE HOUSE in tinfoil. Every room, every object. He said it took him five days of non-stop work.

13

All right, it appears I have been beaten in a couple cases. Which is no bad deal, anytime I get to hear such stories of tin foil it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I plan to post one more time after this. Right now I’ll tell you what happened with Tim and the tin foil. Sometime tomorrow I’ll tell you a story that takes place months later but relates… also another picture!

Unfortunately I wasn’t home when Tim got back, but immediately my phone did ring. "It was, of course, Tim; and he was laughing his ass off! “What did yuse guys dooooo?” Now Dave and I were never worried about any sort of negative reaction. We knew Tim pretty well and we still haven’t been able to figure out anything that really bothers him. Most people are not like this. Imagine someone besides you was allowed to freely search and go through EVERY SINGLE THING in the room while you were gone and unaware. I certainly believe that every single one of my friends who are women would not be my friend anymore if this happened to them. I guess that’s just what makes guys guys.

Dave and I were sure that by placing all his posters and wall hangings over the tin foil that it would ensure the tin foil would stay up indefinitely. Tim is not the most motivated person when it comes to cleaning… or anything for that matter. But no, most of it came down early the next morning. I say most because all the pieces, the little little pieces secured by tape remained. What, you actually expect Tim to go through the trouble of removing all those? So the room looked like some sort of hideous starry constellation that reflected all over.

Now, what to do with so much tin foil? No, we did not make hats. When Tim took it down he crumpled all the larger pieces in loosely crunched large pieces of foil. My idea: a giant tin foil ball!

But unfortunately it was harder than I thought. It would be easy starting from the beginning but instead I had to combine a number of smaller crunched up pieces. So I have to duct tape many parts together while trying to compress them together as much as possible. I was able to covers some parts with the foil, but the duct tape stuck out like many loose pieces of foil like tentacles. So instead of my dreamed Pee-Wee Herman style ball I had something that looked more like a cheap alien monster from the original Star Trek series. The ball had a dimension of about 3’x3’, which was after we tried to crush the thing as much as possible, and surprisingly light.

Ugly as it was you could not beat the novelty of owning your own giant foil ball. Things we did with it:

  • Look at it, because it was fantastic
  • Hurl it downstairs at unsuspecting guest
  • Display it on our front lawn and make a sign charging people $5 for their picture with it
  • Sell it to an art student (I never did hear back from that bitch)
  • Rub it for good luck while the Red Sox head to the World Series (It works!)
  • Annoy your girlfriends because you won’t throw it away

Eventually we all had to move and go our own separate ways. No one could take the ball. I was moving to a shitty apartment (I quickly moved again), Tim was moving home, and Dave’s girlfriend gave him a big NO. It was with a heavy heart that we left it, and for months I missed it.

(Sorry, this came out much longer than expected)

14

All right, sorry that I promised to post sooner, but I couldn’t find my digital camera to take a new picture. I was going to make another long and exhausting post like the previous, but instead I will cut it short. Months after leaving my previous apartment, and almost freezing to death that very night I was so invigorated by life that I snuck back to my old apartment.

I never actually threw out the ball, rather hid it in my landlord’s garage. I snatched it, re-foiled it to make it pretty, and then suspended it from my ceiling at my new apartment as decoration. (See pic: Picture 1129 111 | My giant suspended tin foil ball | crappycrappystuff | Flickr)

And thats the story of my giant foil ball / brazen statement on decor.

My girlfriend still hates it.

15

She hates it cause it’s fugly. Sorry, dude; the prank was beautiful but the BBOTF is heinous.

16

I guess this is too little, too late, but I thought it’d be cool to put a kilowatt light bulb in a foil-lined room.

I’d break out the fire extinguishers, and keep my thumb poised over the 911 speed-dial, just in case.

17

When I was at uni, the council was paving the walkways (10cmx10cmx3cm ish).

They left some overnight where we could get them.

A double layer of pavers completely covering the floor wardens (second floor) door, while he slept inside. In the end, he had to climb out a window, then walk round to disassemble the barrier to let his girlfriend out.

And he had to put all the pavers back :stuck_out_tongue:

Good times.

Si

18

I’m afraid to ask.

19

I’m not: What’d you do to the bed?