Ask and ye shall receive.
This one was one of “the worst” because it backfired miserably on me and like I said before, I don’t like that to happen:
Setting: 1986. A hospital in Miami. Fellow resident, John, and I are in the staff lobby of the surgical suite and we’re about to head out to the cafeteria for lunch. John checks his back pocket and say’s, “I left my wallet in my scrub pants, I’ll be right back.” He then does an about face and goes through the door into the changing room. It’s a big, solid, swinging door. I figure I have about 10 to 15 seconds before John retrieves his wallet from the hamper and swings that potentially lethal door outward back into the lobby, where I and a few staff remain. This is the perfect opportunity for me to pull my tried and true, “ouch, I’ve got a splitting headache” practical joke. It’s a classic.
The beauty of the “splitting headache” prank is that there is so little set-up required, yet the payoff is tremendous: your victim feels panic, regret, sorrow, guilt and finally embarrassment—and all you need are your car keys, a door and an excitable fool as a target (plenty of those around). This may be, in fact, the perfect practical joke.
Set-up: When you’re confident that your victim is about to open a door that swings into an area that you are located, you simply bend over at the waist, with the top of your head facing the door and drop your keys. Be sure to place one of your feet a little ahead of your head, so that it will be the first object to strike the door when it swings toward you (otherwise the joke will be on you). The moment the door strikes your foot, smack the door hard with the palm of your hand, then flop to the ground, prone and writhing.
When your victim continues on through the door to see what he hit, he sees you on the floor, holding your head, moaning, “ohhh…ohhh, my head…oww….” Then, as you rise slowly and wobbly to your knees, he sees your keys on the floor, and thinks, oh, the poor fellow was just trying to pick up his keys, then I whack him in the head, causing severe head trauma…what a horrible brute I am. At this point, you may certainly throw in a few embellishments (e.g. a spinal cord injury twitch, or “I can’t see!”).
When you believe your victim has suffered enough, keep the rouse going for at least another 15 seconds, just for good measure. Then and only then*, *break a devious smile, punch him on the shoulder and say, “gotcha!” Your victim then sighs in great relief, feels morbidly embarrassed for being such a rube to your precision pranking and you both have a good laugh and lasting memory. That’s the way it’s supposed to play out. Supposed to.
Execution: So, I’m bent down in front of the changing room door, keys on the floor, and sure enough ~10 seconds later the door begins to swing ajar…with gusto and determination. I go into action. *Bang…whack…flop…”ohhh…ohhh…my head.” * If there were an academy award for Best Performance in a Practical Joke, I would surely win.
As I begin to make my way, slowly and wobbly, on to my knees, with nothing in my field of view except my victim’s feet, an odd thought shot through my mind, how can John, with his meager resident’s stipend, afford Cole Haan wingtip oxfords? He’s usually a Converse kind of guy…unless…fuck…those shoe’s look familiar… dear God, no… don’t let those feet belong to the Chief of…
“What the hell are you doing on the ground there, doctor!?!”
…Surgery, from Hell!
*Fuckity, fuckity, fuck-a-doodle. *Now, behind the well-buffed oxfords, a pair of scuffed sneakers shuffle into view. Couldn’t have been a few seconds earlier, eh, John?
(Tip of the Day: there’s a variation of the “fight or flight response” that I like to call the “lie or truth response”. Example: Lie: “I’ll be ok in a moment, Chief, I’ve got a pretty hard head you know. Ha ha. Please, carry on”; Truth: smile, punch on the shoulder, “gotcha pretty good there, eh, Chief? Ha Ha Ha!”)
I had a few tenths of a second to analyze the situation and embark on a course of action (i.e. lie, or truth), but in fact, in this case, I really only needed a few hundredths of a second.
Analysis:
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How does the Chief feel about me? Well, there was that awkward “get-to-know-the-residents” mixer he had a few months ago on his boat. Although it was a typical balmy Miami evening on the water, someone needed to break the ice in this frigid social gathering, so I cracked a joke, comparing our host’s Hatteras to the S.S. Minnow. I was relieved to hear a few chuckles in response to my pithy quip. But, my relief turned instantly into mortification when I turned to the Chief and received a deep penetrating stink eye. Later that evening, in a valiant attempt to make amends for the S.S. Minnow gaffe, I spoke admiringly to him about the boat’s spacious cabin. The Chief seemed to soften, until I leaned against the galley table, pulling the hinge screws from the wall, accompanied by a horrible cracking sound—the sound of money flushing down to toilet in repair cost.
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What type of person is the Chief? If it were possible for two men to mate, mix their DNA together and have a baby, and the two men were this Alex Baldwin character and this Joe Pesci Character (warning: not appropriate for people with delicate constitutions), their demon spawn would be the Chief.
…So, I proceeded with the lie response…and, on later reflection, perhaps this wasn’t the best option to choose…
Next thing I know, the Chief and John had me gripped tightly by each elbow and I was being whisked quickly down the corridor toward radiology, to determine the extent of my head trauma. I could tell by back-stabber John’s smirk that he was now aware of my failed practical joke attempt, just as equally I could tell the Chief bought it hook, line and sinker. I was harangued mercilessly as we scurried along, *“what kind of idiot bends down in front of a door?”; “I just love it when jackasses waste my time due to their stupidity“; “and…when the hell are you going to learn how to run a proper subcuticular suture, Dr. Tibby…my grandmother sews better than you and she has Parkinson’s Disease” *The whole trip down the corridor, my eyes flit side to side, looking for a men’s room I can duck into, so that I can bash my head against the sink—if they’re going to scan my head, I better have something good to show them.
But, ultimately, I didn’t let it get to that. I fessed up before we reached the C-T room. Not so much because telling the truth was the honorable thing to do, but because I figured after the scan, John, funny guy that he is, would recommend drilling a hole through my scull to check my intracranial pressure. So, I spilled and withstood the now intensified wrath of Chief. Then, I can’t be sure, but, I think I may have seen a bit of an evil, knowing glint in the Chief’s eye as he turned to leave.
To this day, I still do the “ouch, I’ve got a splitting headache” prank as often as I can—I’m just sure to do it where the doors have peep holes.
