Hey, he made the mess, he’s gotta clean it up. Fair’s fair.
My daughter, who just turned 3 a week ago, played her first practical joke ever on me the other night.
I was in her room reading her bedtime stories. The book I was reading involved lots of kisses. She said “Mommy, can I kiss you on the nose?” I said “Sure,” so she kissed me on the nose. Then she asked to kiss me on the eye. I closed my eyes and let her. So then she asked if she could kiss me on the other eye. I said okay, closed my eyes again…and she licked me on the face. And then laughed like a lunatic.
I was oddly proud.
No, you’re mistaken. It’s really this
I’m proud of her too, Drain Bead. 
Not mine - I don’t have a good enough sense of humor - but some friends of the Other Shoe from way way way back in the day. Middle school, probably seventh grade. One of the boys (say, “Mike”) did something that earned him some epic payback (not sure what, but Mr. Horseshoe assured me that Mike was quite the little shit.) ll the other kids in their group of friends starting making little comments, not to him, but just in his earshot where he’d overhear, about some other boy “Steve.”
Things like, “Man, poor Steve. His dick is only nine inches long.” “Nuh-uh! I heard it was only eight-and-a-half. Ha ha! Tiny dick!” and so forth. Again, these boys were maybe eleven or twelve.
Man, and I thought little girls could be vicious. That’s downright mean. And funny!
One of the few tinyurls you can Google 
Ohhhh…where to start…
I don’t usually do the pranks. I usually suggest them to other people who gleefully take over…and get caught. My head minion is one of those people who gets caught, so he gets blamed for things I do.
There is a very large, industrial shredder at work. It has a revolving belt that carries the paper into the blades. Something like the supermarket belt that you put your stuff on when checking out. The top layer of the belt started peeling off.
I talked to the service guy and learned that the belt was made in layers and it wouldn’t suddenly snap and put someone’s eye out. I didn’t tell my boss about that call. I did show her the belt separating and worried about someone’s eye getting put out. We couldn’t replace the belt until the beginning of the fiscal year, so I’d point out that the belt was peeling off different layers and mention my worries once or twice a month. The guy who used the shredder would also point it out to her.
This went on from December to May 31st. On April 1st, I brought some frozen berries to work, mashed them up, dipped a handful of papertowels in the juice, turned it around so the clean side was against SG’s eye, then painted his hand and face with lumpy gore. I scampered back to the office and was going over some reports when SG came staggering into the office, moaning that the belt had snapped.
My boss went white and almost fainted. I caught her before she hit the ground and whispered “today is April Fool’s day” in her ear. Boss promptly blamed my head minion for it and refused to believe SG and HM that it was my idea.
My son’s friend is always around our house, we joke about him being another son. When he got copies of his school photos, he added them to all our family photos around the house. We’re still finding some. We’ve left them up, and we explain to confused visitors who he is and why his photos are attached to all of ours.
Any Other Name, now that is just sweet. He wanted everyone to know that he was part of the family and you let him do it.
I bought a 6 foot tall tree for my cats but it wouldn’t fit in my car, so a friend and I went to pick it up in my jeep. Tree standing upright and strapped down. My friend used bungy cords to strap a big plush kitty on top of the tree and we drove home.
The looks we got by the oncoming drivers made us laugh so much that when we got pulled over, we could only laugh like loons.
Were any of you present at the1982 Oklahoma/Nebraska football game?
Your friend isn’t happened to be named Mitt, by any chance?
Many years ago, my sister had eye surgery & had to wear a patch over her eye for a few days. When she came home, every picture of her was ‘one-eyed’. For whatever reason, one wasn’t removed & still has a cotton ball taped over the glass; miraculously, it has even survived a move. Newcomers still question it.
I love practical jokes, but only as the perpetrator, never the recipient. Nearly all the jokes I pull on others are exceptionally well executed and hit the mark precisely. But, over the years, I do have 3 that I consider “the worst”…“the worst” in the sense that they backfired on me, or spiraled out of control. Here’s my first:
(Note: Sometimes when you set something up and expect it to go a certain way, you will often perceive it to go the way you expect, even if it doesn’t. The mind is funny that way…a regular practical joker).
- The Flatulator Double Cross (this one is one of “the worst” because I got my comeuppance. I don’t like my uppance to come)
Scene: A semi-formal dinner party at my house for family, friends and acquaintances, including (cliché I know) a minister and his stick-up-the-ass wife.
Set-up: I attached a push button electronic flatulence simulator, the Flatulator (a particularly realistic sounding model) under the chair to be sat on by a rather gullible co-worker, Joe (the butt of not a few practical jokes). At an opportune time, I would trigger the noxious sound; embarrassment and hilarity would surely ensue.
Execution: Deep into the main course (which fortuitously included sauerkraut), with only sounds of mastication to be heard, I triggered the Flatulator. One long toot. A hearty pbbbbbbt! burst forth loud and clear. A few coughs and titters followed, but no laughs. No problem, this was a refined group, and sometimes tension needs to build sufficiently before control breaks like a burst dam and the laughs spew forth. My response was subtle (subtlety is always best), a raised eyebrow toward my target and a simple, “my goodness.” Except for a chuckle or two in response to my wife’s, “anyone like some more sauerkraut”, the sounds of silence returned and eating commenced.
I let a couple of minutes pass before triggering the Flatulator again. This time I gave it two toots—one short, one medium. *Pbbt…Pbbbbt! The coughs and titters made a return which I again followed with a raised eyebrow toward my target, and “I think someone’s had enough sauerkraut, dear.” But, this time around I was more aware of my surroundings and realized that all eyes were not flitting to my target as they should be, they remained trained on me—and I was getting a particularly dyspeptic stare from Mrs. Stick-Up-Her-Ass.
Hmm, come to think of it…they kept their eyes trained on me the first time, too, didn’t they?? And, on further reflection, that last pbbt pbbbbbt! didn’t actually sound like it was coming from under Joe’s chair…and, maybe the first pbbbbbbbt! didn’t sound like it did either. Strange. *
…No, I’m just being paranoid, I set this joke up perfectly, I have the trigger, the Flatulator is where I put it and this routine just needs one more toot to bring the house down, embarrass Joe, and make me the king of practical jokes.
I waited a little longer this time. I was pretty sure it was just paranoia making me doubt the location of the pbbbt! sound…but, I wasn’t absolutely sure. So, I was a little anxious and felt a bit of caution was in order this time around: just one short toot. Pbt! …Egads, with well-focused ears it was now quite obvious that the sound was not coming from under Joe’s chair, it was coming from under…mine! But, how could that b… ”Tibby!!!, if you’re going to keep doing that, will you please excuse yourself from the table!” It was my brother yelling at me. My brother with the evil glint in his eye. My brother who got “wind” of my plan decided it would be funnier to turn the tables on me. He made me both the perpetrator and the recipient of my practical joke. Not funny. Not funny at all. 
No, you’re wrong. It was funny as hell! 
Hrmph…say’s you…all right, on to number 2:
2) The One That Got Away (this I consider one of “the worst” because it resulted in my losing a love of my life):
Scene: Fishing the Florida Intracoastal Waterway in a Carolina Skiff. Two fishermen with experience: me and Jim. One fishing noob: Tom. Tom was an old school chum visiting from a landlocked state. He knows nothing about fish, fishing, or anything of a nautical nature. But, he is*** über***–enthusiastic about the prospect of fishing and nearly wets himself when I asked him to visit and join us on a fishing trip (poor guy has one of those roller pin shaking type of wives and he needed a vacation away from her).
Set-Up: No set up. Nothing of a devious nature was planned for Tom. Just wanted to show him a good time, teach him a bit about flats fishing and send him home with a tan, a bucket of fish and renewed energy to endure the ol’ battle ax for a few more months. Of course, if the opportunity arose to, say, have a little practical fun of the joke variety, well…that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it?
The opportunity arose.
**
Execution:** Beautiful day trolling the feeder creeks into the ICW, water is like glass and the fish are biting, at least for two of us. A couple hours into the trip, Jim and I have a respectable tally of seafood accumulating in the live-well: reds, flounder, snook, sheepshead, black drum… all the usual slimy suspects.
Tom’s tally? Zippidy-do-da. Despite well intentioned rod & reelmanship demonstrations from Jim and I: nada. Tom’s frustration was building. The poor guy just wants to catch a fish. I was secretly rooting for him to hook on, I really was. Then, lo and behold, Tom’s line tightens, and his rod arcs into three-quarters of a circle. He sets the hook with gusto, as I taught him to do, and the clickity-clack of line pulling from a reel with tight drag commences (recall the sound in the Jaws scene when whitey is hooked). Tom is overcome with a mixture of manic anxiety and joy. “I’ve got something big, guy’s!”
From the very start, it was apparent that Tom did indeed have something big on the terminal end of his line, but a fish it was not. It was something bigger, a large oyster bed a few feet under the water. This would not be a battle of mano-a-fin-o for poor Tom; it was going to end with line-o –snap-o. But, that disappointing conclusion didn’t have to happen any time soon…not with a loosened drag, a little back and forth motion with the trolling motor, and two practical jokers on board.
Being hooked on the sea bottom while trolling can feel very much like being hooked onto a very large fish. Particularly so, if someone (like me, perhaps) stealthily twitches the rod butt behind your back, every couple of minutes.
When dealing with someone who knows diddly-squat about anything to do with fish, boats or water, you can pretty much say anything at all and make it sound believable: “Jeez, Tom, I think you’ve hooked onto a giant guppy there!”; “tighten your jib, man, tighten your jib!”; “Holy mackerel, Tom, that’s no guppy, that’s gotta be one of those monster pickled herrings!”; “loosen your jib, for cryin’ out loud!”
After a good 30 minutes or so of watching the sweat pore from Tom’s brow, blood-engorged veins distend from his skin and taut muscles quiver from fatigue, it was time to alleviate the poor man’s torture—I’m no sadist, after all. So, in a well-executed feign, appearing only to elevate the now drooping rod, I slip my other hand around Tom’s reel and tighten the drag all the way. The rod bowed immediately against Tom’s now hyper-taut arm muscles and the line snapped with a pronounced recoil wzzz. Tom stumbled backward and almost fell out of the boat. I wish he did. Instead, he fell to the floor of the boat, breaking a beloved Penn Reel mine (and consequently, my heart), then slumped over in fatigue and despair. Jim tightened the screw, “you should have loosened your jib, man.”
We never did tell Tom the truth about what his “biggun” really was, partly because we wanted him to always have a good yarn to tell his friends and family, and partly because we didn’t want to get bitch-slapped by somebody big and angry (Tom’s a pretty big dude).
One place where I worked I had a boss who was an awesome practical joker. He could take it as well as he could dish it out, and I have to admit he was one of the best at handing it out. We had a running battle for a few years. Here is just one pair of our battles.
In 1993, I went in on a Saturday to try to finish writing a particularly difficult section of a piece of software. I had been there about an hour when my phone rang. This was before the days of Caller ID, and so I had no idea who it was. I answered the phone, and some guy screaming on the phone said he was “Jim”, who was a notorious client of ours. “Jim” kept telling me that our software was a piece-of-shit and every time he started it, it would die. He said he had called my boss, “Roy”, who had told him that I was at work and to call me directly.
I started my diagnosis and kept asking him for the information on the screen, but the software was dying in places I wasn’t expecting. Based on the information I kept getting from “Jim”, the application was dying right after the start and before the splash screen would come up. After 10 minutes, I was in full-out panic, thinking we had just released an extremely problematic software update.
All of a sudden, I heard the distinctive voice of “Roy’s” wife in the background, saying, “Roy, who are you talking to?”
I vowed revenge.
About 3 months later, “Roy” went on vacation to his sister-in-law’s house in another state. Before he left, I asked if I could have his SIL’s phone number so I could contact him in case of an emergency. He said, “Bob, it’s called a ‘vacation’. You handle anything that comes up, and if necessary, leave me a phone message and I’ll get back to you.” (This was before cell phones were really prevalent.)
That weekend, they upgraded our work phone system, and one of the new features turned out to be Caller ID if someone called in on the 800 number. We all received a paper memo informing us of this new feature. Well, “Roy” called in to check his voice mail and forwarded me a message, unknowingly giving me his SIL’s phone number.
The next day, I called and disguised my voice. I introduced myself as the fire chief of our town and asked to speak with “Roy”, deliberately mispronouncing his last name. He got on the phone and after I introduced myself again, I said, “Did you use to live at the residence that was in the 2100 block of Smith Street?”
The deadly silence at the other end of the line was priceless and I let it hang there for about 10 seconds before laughing my fool head off.
Then he started swearing and I hung up. This happened nearly 20 years ago and it still makes me giggle.
I used to think the Baby Ruth in the pool was a common joke but I’ve yet to hear of anyone besides me and Craig who have done it. We did it at a highschool creative writing club conference, or more accurately before it began at the hotel poolside and in front of Tennessee Williams who was lounging nearby being fussily attended by a “friend”.
There were several of us kids in the pool and with little attention on any one person it was easy to slip the candybar from my swimtrunks and rub it a bit to let the peanuts show through before letting it free to float to the surface and be discovered. When it was it had the reaction you would guess. Everyone took off for the nearest way out. “Eeeeew somebody crapped in the pool!”
Craig played it perfect. Eveyone was grossed out thinking they had swam in poo water and staring at it like it was satans own turd. Craig fished it out with a pool skimmer and we began our script.
Me-“Is it crap?”
Craig-“It looks like crap”
Me-“Does it smell like crap?”
Craig bends to smell it- “It smells like crap.”
Everyone has gathered around by this point gawking in disgust and someone says, “Aw man, don’t touch it!” The time is perfect.
Me-“Does it taste like crap?”
Craig picks it up and takes a bite to everyones utter amazement. “Yep that’s crap alright”, he says with a (literally) shit eating grin.
I heard groans and shouts of horror and Scott wretching. Everyone has completely bought it. It was a performance worthy of an oscar. I looked over to see if Tennessee had noticed our prank but he had left to rub oil on prissy boy back at their room by that time. Too bad. He missed a good one.
We didn’t have a pool to do it in. What works just as well, though? Baby Ruth under the door handle of someone’s car. Especially if it’s a warm day so it melts some.
When are we going to be treated to #3?
in highschool i convinced a friend i had cancer… wasn’t really funny, just cruel.
In school, I created a fictitious student. “Matt” was registered, had a health file, a disciplinary file, and was signed up for various courses. His mailing address was at the edge of a local golf course and he had one contact phone #. It was an unlisted number that was one of my sisters (who was off at college), which were harder to trace at the time. I still remember the night when a call came through from the principle demanding that Matt show up at his office the next day.
“Oh, I’ll give him that message. I’m sure he’ll be there, Dr. Thumb…” 
At one of my first jobs, the shift work required that we be in the office until 8, but the managers always went home for dinner around 6. The company had been around for a while, but the phone number they bought from Ma Bell used to be the phone number to the local cable company. While it had been ours for more than 10 years, the old number was still on stickers of very old cable boxes and the cable company had evidently been very slow replacing them. So, long about 7:30-8 we’d get calls coming in from people bitching about how they weren’t getting the cable service that they were paying good money for.
We decided to have a contest for the best ‘joke’ on a cablevision customer, the prize being a bottle of Bushmills. We had them tapping the box on one side with number 2 pencils ("…its the graphite. Try it!"). We had them take them apart. we had them run down the street looking for the truck “…that was just at the end of the block”. But the winner, hands down was the guy who asked the sweet little old lady to read the serial number to him from the bottom of her cable box.
“…Ummm… wait a minute… thats not on our valid box list. Let me check again. Wait… That box is flagged as stolen. It was part of a carton that went missing when one of our vans was stolen! What address did you say you were calling from again? Hello…? Hello…!?”
“Tell me why the hell you work here again?”
“…its cheaper than daycare?”