The worst practical joke/stunt you've pulled.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

Which reminds me of another time. My friend (who happens to be the brother of the guy whose goods we advertised upthread) and I both had ‘vintage’ British cars. He had a 1966 Triumph Herald. I had a Mini Marcos based on a 1968 Austin Mini. In keeping with the quality of British automotive engineering in the 1960s, there were only a few hundred different key types. And each key was numbered with its type. Clearly they didn’t anticipate the drawbacks of such a system. One day he borrowed my car and noticed that my Mini key had exactly the same serial number as his Herald key. He began to hatch a dastardly plan.

A few weeks later I was rehearsing for a play, and when I came out of the rehearsal, my car was gone. It was well before cellphones and there wasn’t a phone for miles. Everyone else had gone home. I wandered around for a while in indecision. I was only three miles from home so I could have walked, but I wanted to alert the police ASAP. I decided to knock on the door of the nearest house and report it stolen. As I walked out of the parking lot I saw a glint from behind a dumpster. There hidden in trash was my beloved car.

I vowed revenge would be mine, and would be served cold.

Several months passed. One weekend morning I saw my chance: he was out in the street tuning his engine. I hid and waited for him to go indoors to take a break. I then slunk along the street below his kitchen window, and went to the car. If you look at the picture linked above you’ll notice that the hood has locks on the side closest to the bulkhead and the hood hinges at the front. Reasoning that that if his keys would open my car’s locks, then reverse would also be true, I successfully unlocked both sides, then making sure nobody was looking out of the kitchen window, very swiftly opened the hood and very swiftly changed the order of his HT leads from 1234 to 2143. I then shut the hood, locked it, and snuck away.

He came back from his break, finished the service, then tried to start the thing up to spin it round the block. The starter turned over fine, but the engine was damned if it was going to start up. He spent the next three hours swearing and scratching his head, pulling the thing to pieces, checking the starter motor, dismantling the distributor, even taking off the HT leads - making sure to preserve their order - and cleaning and re-gauging the spark plugs.

When he went in for another break I snuck out again and switched the HT leads back to the correct configuration. He spent another hour or two on the car before exasperatedly trying the key in the ignition for one last time, and it started up perfectly. I nearly broke a nut laughing.

Seeing that written down it’s not the funniest prank ever written, but fuck me it was hilarious at the time, particularly when he was whining about it in the pub for an hour that evening.

62

I’m not one for pranks, but I did hear George Clooney in an interview once where he talked about a prank he pulled on the actor Richard Kind (his cousin, I think). I thought it was pretty funny, so I’ll share his story.

George was driving around and noticed a truly atrocious painting in front of someone’s trash. An idea came to him, so he stopped and put the painting in his trunk. Then he started telling people that he was taking an art class. This went on for weeks, he elaborated his story with tales of the class and how well he was doing in his art study. Eventually, he proudly gives his first piece to Richard. And Richard felt duty bound to display the piece rather prominently in his home. If I remember the story correctly, it was many months before George fessed up.

I’m astounded by the amount of planning that people put into their pranks.

63

This wasn’t intended as a practical joke, just a joke, but it turned out that way. During the time of Bush the Elder’s presidency, I was visiting a friend in his office in Manhattan, and noticed that the common printer area was used by several businesses on the floor, including the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. Guessing it would come in handy one day, I swiped some of their blank letterhead and envelopes.

Some time later, a friend was putting the finishing touches on a film he was making, and he was getting a bit of local media attention for it. Barbara Bush was due to be in our city in several weeks on a promotional stop for the literacy campaign. I came up with the idea of sending him a letter, supposedly signed by her, asking him if he would put English subtitles in the movie, to help people with learning to read. It mentioned that even Millie, the White House dog, was literate. It said that she was looking forward to finding out if he would do it when she came through the city on her tour, and to consider this a favor to her. The letter was so ridiculous that I never once thought my friend would consider it to be legit, but, of course, he did.

I mentioned it to him a few days later, asking if he liked the letter. He was very surprised, but had a good laugh, and had to quickly get off the phone with me in order to call the local newspaper reporter who had interviewed him the day before to sheepishly tell her that she should leave out the part of the interview where he told her about Barbara Bush’s absurd request.

64

Incorrect. It’s hilarious as written. I salute you.

65

Apparently, Mr. Clooney is renowned for his practical jokes, and his patience in letting them take a very long time to pay off.

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66

Good one! I had a similar situation, just passing on a funny story, Jewish-elders-lift-6000year-ham-ban

The next day I asked her if she got the email, she excitedly told me she forwarded it to her Kosher keeping mother, not realizing it was satire.

67

Great, just what I need. To find out that my wife’s crush is even MORE perfect (and less like me–I’m a “6hrs from inception to execution to glorious payoff” guy).

68

7 years back a friend said that every day when he drove home he saw a sign that said: You will find God at the end of the road. He’d end his story with: I drove to the end and I didn’t find God.

So I got people from all around the world to send him a post card that read (in their native tongue): Matthew, I was there, where were you? - God.

Or: Matthew, the road is longer than you think - God

He got cards from France, Germany, England, Nevada, Japan - all over. Pretty much anywhere I had ever traveled (I usually keep in touch with people I meet, if I can.)

Another friend was riding to work with him, so we faked leaving his brief case in Matt’s car, so we could get Matt’s keys and make a copy. We drove to his house and left a Buddha statue in his car with a note: Matt, I was here, where were you?

We had a lot of things planned, but his friends were freaking him and his wife out with stories of stalkers and his wife was getting up in the middle of the night to check every little noise and they were both having bad dreams. They were considering calling the cops and so I finally confessed. I would have let it go for months, or even years, but a joke is supposed to be funny, not make people lose it.

69

Well thanks. It was about 25 years ago that I did that, by the way, and I never told him what I had done. The last time I saw him, about five years ago, we were talking about times that your car just stopped working with no explanation and he goes, “Yeah, remember that Herald I used to own? Well there was this one time…” I nodded sympathetically as I bit the inside of my lip.

70

I did something similar to my sister, but the popper was a little dingus with 2 strings sticking out the ends. Pull the stings = get a bang. I wedged one end into a seam in the wood of a dresser frame, and the other end into the joint between the side and face of the drawer. A week later, she opened the drawer to put something away, and spent 10 minutes yelling at her kid before she realized it had been me. I got an earful from that one.

71

Another one - this wasn’t mine, but I wish I had been so creative.

A buddy who was in the Marines in the late 70’s was part of a group who basically stole the base commander’s personal jeep one night. They painted it pink, and then painted on all the stenciled markings - vehicle #, “no step”, all that stuff. Then they rolled it back into place before the colonel came out the next morning.

The entire base stood at attention for an hour or two while the colonel delivered an A-one, cast-iron, brass-plated ass chewing that only a Marine officer can give. And the security patrol that didn’t notice that the jeep was missing for several hours got his particular attention. I’m sure those guys had trouble sitting comfortably for a few weeks.

72

Several years ago, I was woken up by a telephone call from an relative asking me to come bail him out of jail. Being drowsy it did not occur to me check the time or I would have noted that it was 12:05 a.m. April 1. As this relative was someone who normally did not get arrested I got out of bed, got dressed, got bail money, and went downtown only to be greated in the parking lot by said relative clutching an enormous bouqet of flowers telling me April Fools with a disgusting grin on this face.

73

Hmm, this was in my country’s April’s Fool (which is the 28 of December)

I was in Paris with a friend, but actually lived in Germany for that year, and another friend (lets call her Nat) that I knew only by chat was coming over to Germany to visit her dad.

So she tried to fool me into thinking that she was coming over the next day, but I realized that it was a joke, so I upped it: I told her I had bought express tickets, hence very expensive, to go back to Germany to meet up with her.

So I was just telling her “what do you mean it’s just a joke? Didn’t you told me you were going to Germany? I already bought tickets”

I guess it was so convincing that other friend asked me (in a different chat) if it was for real. I told her that it wasn’t, but I wanted to continue the joke, I hadn’t pulled off a good joke on years, and damn it I was enjoying it!
There was crying involved, she told me she would pay me back the ticket, and begged me not to stop talking to her.

She still resents me for that.

74

This was mid-90s and we were in a brand new factory where a new LAN was tested and working O.K

We were all young, in same age group and on first name basis and most of us shared the same accommodation.

We used to call the IT guy and complain that the connectivity is lost. He would come running and try his best, go back and forth between server room and the computer and would be generally mad after 30 minutes.

Then one my juniors would simply reconnect the LAN cable on back of the computer and watch the fun, which was full of ex*#$%tives.

75

Oh I remembered another. Some friends from college were finally getting married. The night before the wedding we were over at their house and snuck a DVD of really trashy porn into the player. It was about two weeks later that he got an angry call at work from his new wife, and since he worked in the basement of an old building he had really poor reception and just knew she was pissed at him about something. She was steaming mad for about 10 minutes before she opened the case to put the DVD back in and saw the yellow sticky note from us that said “Gotcha!”

76

I’m fond of ketchup as a condiment, and whenever I would go out and grab some fast food at my last place of employment, I would return with some ketchup packets. And never quite used them all, so I’d save’em, for days when I’d forget or when the store would be out.

Well, I’m not very forgetful and the stores seldom run out, so I accumulated quite a pile of ketchup packets over the years.

My co-worker Marty used to razz me about eating ketchup on everything. So, when I moved on to my current job, I had a little fun at his expense, with the assistance of his office-mate - I hid packets of ketchup all throughout his office. Tucked some into books, under his keyboard - basically every nook or cranny I could find, making sure none was immediately visible at a casual glance.

I’m told that even six months later, he’d still occasionally find one.

77

Lotsa years ago, but when I was in school I’d occasionally bartend at the student union. One evening a friend of mine was hosting a whisk(e)y tasting with about sixty or so participants.
A few different blends were being sampled, and being the bartender that evening, I would personally carry out a tumbler of the blend being sampled to him.

The look on his face when he halfway through the list took a big gulp of canola oil was priceless.

78

Those are the kinds I used on her car door. This kind for toilet seats: http://www.pyrodirect.com/media/ecom/prodlg/077-2025.jpg
and this kind for car doors, home doors, etc.: Martial Arts Supplies, Karate Gear & Self Defense Weapons | KarateMart

79

In college friends and I working for an independent but school related magazine had access to some nice publishing equipment in the days before everyone was doing layout on the computer. It was early in a presidential cycle, the state governor was a perennial subject of speculation, and the magazine we worked on had been receiving “endorsement packets” from various candidates filled with photos, information, and endorsement applications. Being bored college students one weekend we decided to make a very realistic looking endorsement packet for said state governor. The next weekend we were road tripping to a hockey game in the state capital so we mailed the packet from there to a couple major newspapers and the regional newspaper in our college’s city.

The major newspapers didn’t take the bait but Monday morning our local paper had a story stating they while the Governor is denying it, they have information that he will very shortly announce run for president.

80

One night my freshman year I was walking home from work to my dorm and found a rotating sprinkler (this kind of head: http://i01.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/907/876/381/381876907_017.JPG). I took it, not sure what I do with it.
A couple weeks later, another friend found a hose and brought it back.
A third guy liberated a spigot head from the cleaning staff’s cart (they used hoses to clean up the bathrooms but couldn’t leave them operable in a building full of freshmen http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41utrE8RjGL._SL500_AA300_.jpg).
We realized we should join forces and hatched a plan. We woke ourselves up about 3:00 am, connected the sprinkler (setting the rotation to minimum), ran it to the door of a guy we hated (he lived on another floor), pointed at the side where the door opend, turned on the water, and ran. We expected the sound would wake him up quickly but it didn’t and the water ran for a couple hours.
We kept our mouths shut, didn’t ask any questions, and waited to hear news. We heard that a couple people on his floor (who also didn’t like him) woke up, saw it, and let it run; eventually someone shut it off.
We also heard that he immediately suspected us but mutual friend spent an hour or more convincing him that we were not that cruel. And boy, was she pissed when she found out it was us.
We were never caught.

This was a friend’s:
A co-worker of hers is not terribly computer literate; he’s fine as a user but he doesn’t understand how the things work. She stored a sound file of someone screaming on a network drive. When he was away from his desk, she made the sound his shutdown sound. For a few days, he’d shut down his computer at the end of the day and be shocked, but forget about it by the next morning. Finally, he remembered and asked some people into his office to hear what happened when he shut down. The friend went to the network and changed the name of the sound file so nothing happened. After his failed demonstration she changed the name back and at the end of the day it happened again.
She finally confessed a few days later.

I worked at a conference center during summers; the staff lived on site. One night I put honey on a toilet seat in the women’s restroom. A couple of them sat on it and their first reaction was to try to wipe themselves off with toilet paper. It stuck to their butts. I confessed and had to apologize and clean my mess.
During the school year I told the story to some guys in my dorm (the dorm mentioned above) and they decided to do it. They also thought the honey was too visible, so they broke into the fuse box and disconnected the lights.
They didn’t keep their mouths shut and got caught, and were almost kicked out of the dorm.