I was in a hotel in Las Vegas several months ago, and the lift was a little crowded. One of the passengers asked my which floor I wanted. I said, “Thirteen, please.”
[hijack]
Is it only American hotels that don’t have a floor labeled “13”?
[/hijack]
Next time you’re at a store, ask if they accept Federal Reserve Notes.
At breakfast, ask the waitress if the ham is kosher.
Collect a silver dollar, a suzie, a sackie, a half dollar, and a two-dollar bill. Buy something with the lot.
I bought a DVD (about $20) and paid entirely in sackies. You woulda thought I’d kicked the cashier’s dog onto a busy highway by the look she gave me.
I got a bunch of sackies from the Post Office stamp machine, and bought stuff at the drug store with it. The cashier said sullenly, “We just turn these back in right away.”
Yes, just like most of the money this store makes. Now, be a good girl and accept the legal federal government issued currency. Oh, and don’t act like I’m paying with Play-Do stamped into coins, either.
This is for any company that you know runs a tele-sales operation, and is therefore fair game.
Pick a typically busy time when the Sales Manager isn’t likely to be available (e.g. middle of Monday morning, or 1pm, lunch-time, Friday0. Ring up and to speak to the sales manager. Say you are from Made Up Name corporation and would like to discuss some possible joint marketing efforts which would include you sharing potential business leads, often for 50k to 100k-value contracts. This will hook in ANY sales manager, guaranteed. Leave a return phone number that doesn’t exist.
Do this as often as you like, each time getting more and more angry that the SM hasn’t called you back. Alternatively, call the SM’s boss and repeat your dismay that you are offering some good leads and that lazy good-for-nothing SM hasn’t even had the decency to return your calls. Then leave lots of dead-end contact info.
If you organise this campaign well, you can cause the Sales Mgr some serious grief. A slight but worthy victory in the fight against tele-sales.
I sometimes give directions to out-of-town strangers that are actually the “less-than-direct” route to get them where they need to go.
For instance, last week, a gent stopped on the side of the road to ask me how to get to I-5 southbound. I gave him accurate directions, but they were to an interchange on the opposite end of town - instead of the one four blocks away. Now understand that I don’t do this with average people - but this guy was in his $50,000 SUV with his cell-phone, computer, GPS, Sat-Nav and all the rest. I figured if he couldn’t even find a freeway entrance that was clearly marked only four vlocks away, he could use a little tour of the city.
Okay, could somone tell me what a ‘sackie’ is?
A sackie is a Sacajawea dollar coin, gold in colour. The only way I ever end up with them is from the stamp vending machines in a post office.
>At breakfast, ask the waitress if the ham is kosher.
I ask if the milk is freshly squeezed.
Gosh! A couple of those were kinda mean!
How could I forget this one? Once, at Sears, in the tool section, a saleswoman asked me if I needed any help. I told her, “Well, I was thinking of buying a chain saw; but I see you don’t carry night vision goggles.” (She said, “You’re scaring me!” My co-worker, who was paying her Sears bill, was appalled. 
)
I work at Subway, and one day my co-worker Emily found some safety glasses at her dad’s work and brought them in. They were huge tinted lenses, no magnification, and giant clear plastic rims. We played on this all day, every time a new customer would come in we’d have little jokes lined up. We would ask her if she ever considered getting contacts, she’d say that she thought they were bad for your eyes so she was reluctant to get them. We’d borrow them to replace the masking tape “holding together” the bridge of the glasses while she would fumble around like she couldn’t see…we even had our own manager convinced that she really needed these glasses to operate. She said that people treated her much differently, like she was stupid and needed extra assistance. We couldn’t stop laughing after every customer.
I do that, too.
Only in my case, I do this to those people who are too damn lazy to get out of their car and ring my doorbell and, instead, sit in their car and honk the horn until someone comes out of the house.
And I don’t give “less-than-direct” routes, either. I give WRONG routes.
Anyone else walk up to people with names stitched in their shirts and start talking to them like they’re long lost friends?
I once had a customer leave me five Susan B’s as a tip; I took them to Blockbuster to rent videos, and the Annoying Young Man behind the counter glanced at them, flipped his hair, and said, “Um…this is only a dollar twenty-five.”
“No it isn’t,” I said. “They’re dollar coins.”
This was before the advent of Sackies, so I guess he’d never heard of such a thing. He looked at them for a good two or three minutes…glancing at me like, “What’s the joke?” the whole time…
And then called his manager over! “I have to get these verified,” he explained. “We don’t even have a space in the drawer for these…‘dollar coins.’”
The look on his face made me wonder if anyone’s ever tried to pay for something with arcade coins…
Hey, that’s another annoying trick to play on strangers!
I like putting the frog on our water cooler in funny positions. The folks from the other team keep putting it upright.
It’s been going on for weeks now. Though this joke requires a frog, a water cooler and some people who think upside down is not natrual for a plastic frog.
When tourists ask for directions rather than reading a map, send them into the housing projects.
Oh, I LOVE those!
And if someone asked me about Federal Reserve Notes while I’m at work, that’d be something new!
Get a Post-It gluestick (available at all better office supply stores - it’s just like a regular gluestick but uses the same adhesive found on Post-It notes). Apply a thin strip of glue to the top of the back of a stack of bills (any denomination) and put them into a blank checkbook.
You now have what appears to be a checkbook, but filled with currency instead of checks.
When the checkout clerk gives you the amount of your purchase, pull out your “billbook” and peal off the requisite number of bills.
For this one you need several people. Go in to a book store (and stay together as a group) and ask where they keep the Kama Surta.
This one works good with one person or several people. Go to any store that sells condoms, and buy a pack of condoms with some other usuaual items. Condoms, shaving cream, Crisco and a volleyball get some strange looks.
I used to live in a popular seaside tourist destination and it was always a gas to pull up next to some of the snow birds walking down the street and say “excuse me, excuse me , can you tell me how to get to (actual location where you are)?” and they stop and look back and forth up and down the street like they’re trying to figure it all out. I knew another guy who said he and his friends would go into pizza restaurants along the beach with only their swimtrunks on suppsedly to use the facilities and would emerge from the restroom naked and screaming and would jump on peoples tables and stomp their pizza before charging out of the establishment. Created quite a disturbence and very hard to explain to the management.
[martha]
Completely off the given topic: The above makes a wonderful gift for your favorite graduate or new homeowner, especially if you make a custom cover.
[/martha]
One of the most entertaining tricks I know of:
Requires
1.) A shiny quarter
2.) Superglue
3.) A non-carpeted, highly trafficked floor (mall, sidewalk, breezeway, etc.)
3.) As much time as you can spare
Glue the quarter to the floor, kick back, and watch just how many people will notice it and try to pick it up. They will kick it, tap it, try to yank it off the ground, pick at it…and then when the light goes off (for some of them) that it’s a practical joke, the look on their faces is the best part.
The ones who continue on their way, forever confused, are pretty damn funny too.
(And you will be alarmed and intrigued by how important that puny quarter is to so many people.)