At my new job in a cafe, I work behind the register, in close proximity to Carl, the chef.
Just a brief glimpse at Carl; he has two plugs in his lobes, big silver ones about the diameter of a ten cent piece and about 3/4 of a centimeter thick. He has a few bars in different parts of his ears and a closely shorn head. He’s 30 and his ex girlfriend ran away with his four year old son. He’s not a happy chappy. But this is not about that. This is about Carl’s utter genius in pranking fellow workers.
When working at one restaurant, he slipped Turbo-Lax in two guys’ coffee. Why? Because they were assholes. Not such a big deal right, little bit of a laxative?
Except for when you take little chillies, so hot that they make your lips blister, and squeezed them onto the rim of the toilet seat. One guy had a perfect imprint of the loo seat on his ass in blisters.
Dotti is a socially naive wench, who works at my cafe. She came to Australia from Eastern Europe (so did most of our waitresses/waiters) as a size 8. She ate like a wren, very conscious of her size. She proceeded to hit on Carl, who took no real notice and also on the other chef. Finally Carl responded and she stepped away ‘No no, I have boyfriend, I no cheat on him.’ She did the same to the other chef. These two men, normally at opposite poles banded together to formulate a plan. As chefs, they both know the calorie content of the food they make. They created little snacks, no more than an inch cubed which contain more energy than nuclear fuel rods. Sugar, flour and butter, cut with apple and walnut to disguise the taste. Two months later, Dotti needs to go up a size. Her boyfriend is complaining. Carl and the other chef are wetting themselves with glee.
He once worked for a man often described as an absolute c*nt. A real hard bastard, with no love for anyone. One day, Carl had been pushed too far. He often made daily lunches for his boss and decided to slip a little extra something in there. Like an oestrogen pill. Forty-five days later, this man is crying to Carl; he doesn’t know where his life is going, there are troubles at home and he’s an emotional wreck. Carl’s pity had already started to kick in and he stopped slipping in the little something extra.
He once had a colleague who either came in drunk and was obnoxious and talkative, or hungover and whingy. One day, he came in drunk and went too far with Carl. The next week, Carl turned on the gas in the oven, with the door open a crack until he could smell the gas. He shut the oven. He waited. The guy came in, hungover to hell. He picks up the clicker which is on top of the oven and lights it. Opens oven door. It is probably worthy of note that this man had straggly hair in a pony tail before that day. Afterwards, he looked clean-shaven with a singed ponytail at the base of his skull.
Carl also loves fireworks. He once took what is essentially a little stick of dynamite, took apart a stove top and twisted the wick of the firecracker around the pilot. At 6am, some half-awake fucker goes to light his stove and is shocked awake by one hell of a bang. The first time it happened to Carl, he didn’t speak for the rest of the day.
This is not to say that Carl has never been pranked. At one job, two of the other chefs opened a steam oven at him whilst he made ravioli. Carl had third degree burns where no one wants third degrees burns. The ring leader had a laugh but not for long. Two weeks later, Carl has made up the hottest chilli oil on earth and waited for his moment. As this prankster has bent over, Carl has emptied one litre of chilli oil into this man’s butt crack. No one at that place ever pranked Carl again.
However, it is customary to prank someone on their last day. At another restaurant, Carl gave one month’s notice and no one has mentioned anything but he can feel an undercurrent brewing. On his last day, he heads to the change room only to have it opened with the manager’s keys and have twelve chefs drag him out and truss him up to a meat trolley, roll him down to the foyer (where the general public dines) and yank down his pants so that his third eye winks at the security camera. A female security guard wanders down and he begs her to ‘pull up his fucking pants please’ and so she disappears. Ten minutes later she returns with a pair of tongs but she just can’t seem to get a grip on his pants. And so what if some people see that you have a hairy bottom?
He admits that his best prank was Rob. One morning, he and the other chef arrive at 6am. No Rob (third chef). Time continues until 10. Still no Rob. They call the casino. Rob is $8,500 up and tanked. He doesn’t want to leave. If he doesn’t get his arse into work, he’ll get fired. In the lead up to Rob’s arrival, Carl assigns him to Sides and gives him only enough potato chips to last until the busy time. In the meantime, he puts the rest at the back of the freezer room and mops the floor in there three times with clean water. Sure anough, around rush time, Rob bolts in to grab more potato chips and ends up in a shitheap of drunken limbs against the boxes of potato chips.
He has also ridden a motorcycle through a dead cow (by accident) and played with air guns filled with blue cheese but more on that later, if you request it.
