Pranks Gone Sour: Jaw Dropping Instances When Being Mischievous Backfires
In the realm of jokes and jests, pranks stand as the ultimate mischief, which is an unyielding force of hilarity that knows no bounds. "Prank" — a single word that carries the power to spark joy, unleash chaos, and leaves even the most souls in stitches. However, not everybody can successfully pull off an amazing prank. Sometimes, they fall short of the mark.
In this thrilling exploration, we'll uncover some pranks that backfired monumentally. From failed pranks that give you secondhand embarrassment to those that are outrightly cruel, get ready to get your mind blown away.
The Miracle
I'm a bartender and one of my managers celebrated their birthday a few weeks ago. He'd already celebrated hard the night so he asked that when he poured shots that we use a whisky bottle filled with iced tea for him. We happily agreed, thinking it would be funny watching the other manager get wasted and having trouble keeping up.
An hour or so later, the other manager came and told us that he also was having a rough night and wanted us to use iced tea when we were pouring shots of whisky for him.
So, both managers wander up to the bar and get shots with each other all night. All the bartenders know what's going on, but they have no clue that they are matching shot for shot of iced tea. Both start becoming amazed that the other can handle 20+ shots of whisky in only a few hours time. Both are acting as though they are wasted.
We ultimately tell them what was going on by pouring them a drink from the other person's bottle.
Photo: Unsplash
When Sleep Deprivation Meets Science Class
I was in high school, and had a lot of trouble sleeping. I was in one of my classes with a teacher that was generally laid back, and we were working in groups, so I was sitting on the table, facing my friends (and away from the front of the room). At this point, I hadn't gotten more than a couple of hours of sleep over the past several days, and was totally in a daze, and starting to have some hallucinations.
My teacher didn't know this, but he decided that he was going to be super funny about getting me off of the table.
This was a science class, so they were very high, very heavy lab tables, and there were cabinets underneath all of the counters around the edge of the room. My table happened to be next to one of these cabinets.
My teacher came up and very quickly lifted one side of the table about a foot off the ground. I slid off the table and onto the floor as he dropped the table, which made a really, really loud bang.
I flipped the heck out, darted into a cabinet, and started crying while all of my friends berated the teacher in no uncertain or safe for work terms.
It was one of those things that should have been okay, but at the time I had no idea what the heck had happened or why I was on the floor or why things were loud and wasn't really capable of processing it.
Instant Message Mayhem
I had a job in an office with a bunch of people who were around my age at the time (around 23-26). A lot of us kept AIM open while we worked because the job got a little tedious. My co-worker, N, kept sending me snippets of conversation with a girl, K, he said was annoying him.
K would send him stupid little things on purpose, like "'lol' looks like a man drowning" and N, being a rather busy person at work, would not act amused.
I copied K's screen name from the chat logs he sent me, and pasted together a fake one that went something like this:
K: I dunno why he's being so mean.
Me: I have no idea, maybe he's in a bad mood.
K: He probably just wants to get with me.
I sent this fake chat log to N. I figured if he believed me, I'd just tell him it was fake right after. Little did I know, K is standing a few feet away from N's desk. I hear N stand up and say to her, "You think I want to get with you?!"
He basically just yelled at this girl in the middle of our company's office. I think she started crying, I felt awful.
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911, It’s An Emergency
The Manson Family used to do this thing they called "creepy crawling" where they would break into a house when a family was sleeping and rearrange the furniture, steal stuff, etc. and then sneak out without waking them.
A friend of mine read about it in Vincent Bugliosi's book about the Family and it really freaked him out. We lived in Southern California and this was only a few years after the murders.
His parents were away on vacation (we were teenagers at the time) and he was working late so me and another guy broke into his house and rearranged all of the downstairs furniture. We also went upstairs and unscrewed all of the light bulbs.
Finally we took some dog hair and put it in the kitchen sink with a knife and some fake blood we had from Halloween. We took the dog back to my house (a couple of doors down) and were going to meet him when he came home to see his reaction.
Unfortunately he got off early and while we were back at my house smoking weed and yukking it up he returned home. He discovered the state of his house and really lost it and called the cops.
They searched the downstairs and when they found out the lights were out downstairs they retreated and called the SWAT team to search the rest of the house. This is about the time we wandered outside to see what the commotion was all about.
The dog followed us outside and ran back home just ahead of us, but fortunately no one saw this and we just stood there talking to our friend acting dumb. We were scared out of our minds - there were at least 10 cop cars and the entire department there.
The cops questioned us (we were very, very stoned) but somehow didn't suspect us. Eventually they decided it was a prank of some sort (the fake blood gave it away) and although my friend knew it was us he kept his mouth shut so it all ended without any serious repercussions.
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From Hairdo To Hairdont
I have a friend who is absolutely obsessed with how his hair looks, let's call him "Marty". He is constantly combing and tending to his mane, a habit that really ticks off anyone trying to have a conversation with him.
I have a terrible habit of playing with fire, so a disaster was almost guaranteed.
One day we were chatting in the hallway of our dorm and I thought it would be funny to give him a good scare and flip on my lighter in front of his face. Little did I know that Marty uses roughly an entire can of hairspray to achieve his "look" every day. Within milliseconds the entire side of his head was ablaze.
I have never seen a look of such sheer panic and bewilderment on anyone's face at the same time. Luckily for Marty I was quick to react and smothered the fire within a second or two, but not before the fire could singe off a good two inches of hair.
Needless to say Marty was freaking mad. I however, and all the people in the hallway, could not stop laughing.
Marty immediately went to the bathroom to assess the damage. The shriek that came out of that room and the look of pure hatred on his face when he emerged only served to make me break into even more hysterical laughter.
While Marty choked me out against the wall and berated me the only thing I could manage to squeak out was, "I'm really arrrggghhh sorry, but come on...I did just put out the fire on your head."
Marty let go and immediately left to go brood over his loss. Two or three days later he finally accepted my apology after I baked him a "I'm sorry I lit your head on fire apology cake."
For my birthday last year he gave me his old Boy Scout fire safety badge, and to this day it is a running joke between us.
Photo: Unsplash
On The Target List
Several years back, my old roommate and I had just moved into a new apartment. We each had our rooms all decked out and looking nice in their respective color schemes. His happened to be red, gray, and black.
The only thing missing from his room was a trash can so we decided to venture to the local Target store in search of a red waste receptacle, since Target seems to always have color coordinated decor.
We arrived at Target and made our way into the store. On the way in, there was this obese, old, woman making her way into the store in an electric cart. One of the automatic doors was out of order, so we had no choice other than to wait patiently behind her as she took her time slowly crawling through the entrance. My memory could be making this up, but I almost swear she looked back at us and scowled at one point.
Anyways, after what seemed like eternity we were finally in the store and setting out on our quest, joking about the temporary barricade which we had just experienced and how it was a minor bump in the road on our quest for the Holy Red Trashcan.
For whatever reason, we were having the worst time finding the aisle with trash cans and decided that rather than waste any more time, we should start looking for an associate to guide us. Finding an employee also became a chore, so my mind quickly wandered to pranks to play.
Right when we spotted an associate we were passing an endcap that was stocked with rolled up rugs, and being a still relatively young man, my mind immediately jumped to the thought of how amusing it would be to hit my roommate, who was walking in front of me, with one of these rugs.
Before I gave it any second thought, I looked down to find one of these rug rolls in my hands, swinging....
I looked up from the rug to my target just in time to see the end of my weapon collide with an adjacent end cap that happened to be filled with porcelain soap dispensers.
Crap.
Imagine the loudest, most chaotic, noise you have ever heard and triple that. Glass chattering everywhere, and here I am, standing there, holding a smoking gun. I panic. Associates appear out of nowhere and seemingly don't figure out how it happened.
They're just advising us to not touch anything and to back away, so I casually slip the rug back into the endcap and act like nothing happened.
That's totally not all though. As all of these little porcelain hand grenades were exploding all over the place, the woman in the electric cart from earlier happened to be rounding a corner in front of us, right in the path of the shrapnel.
Her face went from being lost in thought to complete, utter terror as the sound of the glass apocalypse reached her ears and the glass shards started flying. The woman went into shock and lost control of her cart, which then accelerated wildly as she weaved into another endcap, knocking even more glass goodies onto the floor.
We just stood there in shock. Has this really happened? The associates asked the woman if she was okay, she was too shocked for words, but nodded yes. Her cart had become stuck in the endcap and the associates immediately began trying to free her.
One of them shot us a look like "get out of here before you cause more problems" and we found each other both briskly walking towards the exit. Our eyes met and I whispered to him "not yet."
I think we made it about halfway to my car before we both just dropped to our knees in the parking lot and erupted into laughter and tears. To this day I still get nervous walking into a Target that there will be a mugshot of me somewhere and that I'll get tackled by security and arrested for the great glass massacre a few years back.
I don't think we ever found a red trash can.
Photo: Unsplash
WW3
When I was around 10, I saw a documentary on TV that simulated what developing news coverage would look like if a very large, dangerous meteor shower were to occur on earth.
In it, there's a scene with a news reporter in London (I think), where an impact has just occurred, and the news agency is speculating that it was a nuclear weapon, and we might be looking at the start of WW3.
Then another, bigger one hits and obliterates everything in sight, news reporter included.
I found the whole thing fascinating, and when my mom taped it for me, I had the idea of scaring my younger brother. I popped the tape in one morning as we were getting ready for school, and tried to scare the crap out of him with the idea that WW3 was around the corner.
Instead of just scaring him though, when he saw the news reporter/crew presumably get killed he just started to cry for them, and I felt like a heartless monster.
I wish I knew what it was called myself, but this was probably some 13 years ago and it slipped my mind. Would love to check it out again if anyone else might remember…
Photo: Unsplash
Office Wars
I have had two pranks totally backfire on me when I was working at the company a few years ago.
I was in the tea room late one day after everyone had gone home when I noticed this can of Coke in the fridge with a post-it note that said *Do not touch - Julie*. I had an empty Coke in my hand so I thought I would set up my friend Chris. I wrote a note that read, “Sorry Julie, I was really thirsty and I couldn't be bothered going to the shop - Chris” and stuck it to an empty can.
Then I wrote another note explaining the joke and attached it to her full can which I placed just behind the empty one.
The plan was that she would see the empty can and read the note, get upset, then a few seconds later see her full can with the explanation.
I get into work the next morning and I see Chris. Trying hard to contain my grin, I asked him if he had seen Julie yet, and with a mock quizzical expression on his face he replied, “No, have you?”. I said, “no, why..”.
That instant, Julie storms into my cubicle, livid as heck, and she yells at me, “you owe me a coke”. I started to mutter back, “no no,.. it was Chri..” and she then cuts me off with “...and no I don't want to go to lunch with you”.
At that point I was thinking, “Lunch???... WTF???” I looked over at Chris and he was leaning back in his chair, fingertips touching, with this huge “cat that ate the canary” look on his face.
I asked him, “What the heck just happened?” He tells me that he got in early that morning and saw the can before Julie did so he takes her full can but leaves my empty one with a new note saying that I had drunk it.
To really screw me over he goes to my machine and logs into my email (I had given him a password to another system as he was in support and had guessed correctly that I used the same password for my email). He had sent her this eloquent email apologizing for my indiscretion and that I would be more than happy to share a coke with her, say, over lunch.
Now this girl is the office babe and is happily married so it did not go down very well. I tried explaining but to this day I don't think she believed me.
I had to get him back so I thought up another prank that I could play on him. I lay the foundation by telling him there is a virus going around that can infect machines simply by browsing certain common websites. I then wrote this mock virus that simply displayed a popup when his machine booted.
It looked really convincing with skulls and radioactive symbols and lots of flashing red. It put up a warning saying that turning the machine off would result in irreparable harm. It then *searched* and found all the networks that he had access to, with progress bars showing the *formatting* progress.
I ran it by the support people first so that if I wasn't in when he turned his machine on they wouldn't freak. The night that I put this program on his machine a security guy walks by and strikes up a conversation. Feeling really clever, I tell
him what I am doing, explaining that it is a harmless prank and how I was getting back at my friend over the Coke prank backfire and we both have a bit of a laugh over it.
The next morning I was there when he turned his machine on and even though I couldn't see his screen I knew that it was running because I could hear the beeps. I asked him, “Chris, everything OK...., Chris.. Chris, what's wrong?”
I let him stew for a minute or so, then I came clean and had a laugh. He really looked shaken by it.
Anyway, later that day I got called into my boss's office, thinking that he was going to thank me for staying at work until 11 the previous night to get a deadline. Straight away I knew something was not right because he told me to lock the door behind me.
He then goes over the prank (even though he knew about it and had a laugh), but he is in a serious mood. Apparently the idiot security guard cannot tell a real virus from a fake one, even though I specifically said that it was not real, and had entered it into his log as “computer programmer plants virus into colleagues machine”.
It got back to the CEO and he wanted me fired on the spot. My boss had to intervene and explain that it was just innocent fun.
Even then it was still touch and go with my employment status (the only thing that saved me was that I was in charge of a mission critical system), the result of which my after hours access was restricted after 5.00pm.
Photo: Unsplash
April Fool’s Prank
It was April Fool’s Day. I was 23 and still a virgin. The previous evening, I had a first date (with the girl who I would subsequently date and later lose my virginity to). The next morning, my (female) roommates asked me how my date went. I acted quiet and nervous, and said it was good. I spent a long time focusing on tying my shoes. Finally, I blurted out "I had intercourse last night!" and proceeded to talk about how it was unexpected, just kind of happened, and I wasn't completely sure how I felt about it and that I regretted losing it to a (then) random girl.
My roommates were very supportive and commiserate with me (neither were virgins). Finally, as they were talking me through stuff, I grabbed the marker off the whiteboard on their door and wrote 'April Fools.'
They berated me for a minute, and then started laughing. They continued to laugh all day, and would crack up again when I ran into them between classes. All in all, it was perfectly executed (and completely off the top of my head).
It was so successful that I decided to pull it again that afternoon. One of my other friends who was also a virgin asked me how my date was, and I reacted the same way as the first time. She got very quiet, listened to my increasing hysterics, and assured me that things would be okay.
"I know how you are feeling," she said. "The same thing happened to me last week. I'm glad we can talk about it, I haven't even told my sister or best friend yet."
With seven pounds of sludge in my guts, I admitted it was an April Fools prank. "Mine wasn't!" she yelled at me with tears starting to well up. She turned around and ran off, and didn't show up to the evening class that we shared. She didn't talk to me for four days.
Photo: Unsplash
Playing Cupid
I studied computer science ten years ago, before the rise of spam as we know it. In my networks class we studied SMTP, the email protocol, one day. I noticed that the specification did nothing to compare the email address/user name used to authenticate with the server and the form field on the email to be sent. I thought to myself, "self, methinks this shall be used for mirth-making", and promptly headed for the computer lab after the lecture ended.
I fired up a terminal, authenticated to the mail server, and began writing...nothing. I couldn't come up with something worthy of my newfound ability. On around the third attempt, a friend (we'll call him Brett) who was studying English entered the lab to write one of the many, many papers those schmucks have to pump out to get a degree.
I flagged him down, and explained the situation. We decided to write a homosexual love note from one of our mutual friends Mike, a Brooklyn born macho Italian, to another friend Bill, who was a bit of a nancy from Connecticut (popped collars and plaid shorts). Brett came through big time.
This was an epic sonnet declaring undying love and swearing eternal memory of the previous night's carnal rapture. It was gold, prize winning material. We proofread, sent the message, and wandered off to the bar laughing together.
The thinking was, Bill would read the letter, get a little disturbed, and call Mike out on it, and before the first punch was thrown we would step in and say "Ha! Neener Neener, we got you!" and all would be forgiven over a few pitchers of beer. Well, that's not what happened.
Bill was out at his work/study gig at the library when the message came through, and Bill's girlfriend of about a year was using his computer to write a paper. She saw the leading subject, and decided to open and read this email.
She flipped the heck out, as would any girl in a long term relationship who just read what she thinks is graphic proof of the ongoing infidelity of her significant other with a member of the same sex.
She broke his computer slamming it on the desk, then stormed over to the library where Bill was working. She screamed obscenities of contemptuous fury at poor Bill, before declaring in no uncertain terms that she had seen his email, she knew about his affair with Mike, that they were through, and she never wanted to see or hear from him again.
Everyone in the library bore witness to this spectacle. After Bill got over the shock and embarrassment, the rage set in.
Bill abandoned his post at the library and made for the gym where he knew Mike to regularly work out at that time and day. Mike was happily doing his routine, when into the weight room comes a person who considers a friend.
When he realized that Bill was apoplectic, and that he was the apparent cause of Bill's anger, it was too late. Bill immediately broke out in fists, screaming about the email and what had happened, while he hammered away at Mike's head.
Mike was quite homophobic, and did not take very kindly to being accused of writing homosexual love letters to his friends, particularly in public, and even more particularly when he had done no such thing.
The blows were injuries atop of insult. The result was an epic brawl which got them both banned from the gym permanently and sent to the medical center for treatment of broken fingers, missing teeth, lacerations about the brow, and severe swelling. They were no longer friends.
While that whole debacle was unfolding, Bill's now ex-girlfriend tracked down Mike's soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend and told her, in great detail, exactly what she had read. Mike's girlfriend was equally upset by this revelation, and probably would have sent Mike to the medical center herself if Bill had not already done so.
Things being what they were, she waited until he came home from getting patched up, hurled some slurs at him and dumped him on the spot.
Of course Brett and I knew none of this, we were still at the bar finishing our pitcher and smugly snickering about our funny joke. This was a time before the common possession of cell phones, laptops were three inches thick, and Facebook was still Harvard only. It was getting later in the day at that point, around dinner time.
Our friends started trickling into the bar, and news of the events along with them. Brett and I were shocked and horrified to discover the havoc our prank had wreaked, and upon learning of the damage that had been done, decided that the great reveal we had planned would be extremely hazardous to our wellbeing.
On the one hand it would have repaired two relationships and a friendship, but on the other it was a violation of not just the trust of our friends, but also the university's code of conduct, as well as state and federal law.
The choice was getting the crap kicked out of us, getting thrown out of school, and then standing trial for computer crimes, or letting things blow over. To this day, I regret that I chose the latter. I did learn from that fateful day, though, and I never attempted any of my knowledge or abilities of any variety for mischief or evil again.
As this demonstrates, the world is rife with stories of situations that begin with the best or at least naive intentions, and then spiral out of control to ruinous results.
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A Bone To Pick
This story involves two friends of mine. We'll call the Prank-ee "James" and the pranked "Shawn".
So Shawn was the typical overweight kid that hung out with everyone. Although, there was no sympathy about his weight, we didn't make fun of him or anything, he was just a fat kid. Shawn loved eating unhealthy, every morning when he got onto the school bus at 7:30am, he would always have some sort of soft drink in his hand and ready to consume (coke, 7up, root beer etc)
So one day, our class goes down to the library, James, Shawn and I are all sitting together at a table. Shawn gets up to grab a book he is using for research. While he's gone, James turns to me and whispers "Watch this."
As Shawn is about to take his seat next to us, James does the classic prank of pulling the chair from underneath Shawn
Shawn ends up falling hard on his butt on the library floor. Except, instead of laughing it off like most victims of that prank does, he kind of just lays there. James looks at him and says "Haha you alright there bud?". With the biggest look of disappointment Shawn looks up and says "I....I can't get up". It turns out that when Shawn landed hard on the floor, he also broke both of his hips. His bones were so fragile because of his unhealthy diet and addiction to sugary drinks that an impact such as falling onto the library floor caused him to break both of his hips.
The poor guy ended up getting multiple surgeries and was stuck in a wheelchair for most of senior year. He also missed a whole semester and had to come back an extra year to complete his courses.
James got away Scott-free because Shawn was just that nice of a guy. He understood that it was a prank gone wrong, and didn't have any hard feelings against James.
Shawn is back on his two feet and walking, last time I saw him he was walking with a limp but stated that the screws in his hip are working like a charm.
Photo: Unsplash
Green With Envy
One year I mixed green food coloring into the scrambled eggs and served up green eggs and ham. My girlfriend thought it was disgusting and wouldn't eat them. They tasted fine, honestly.
The next year I separated the yolks from the whites and only put the coloring in the whites. Green eggs with yellow yolks and ham. She wouldn't eat them. And, insisted that I was no longer allowed to make eggs on April 1.
On March 31 the next year, I very carefully used a hypodermic needle to inject green food coloring into the yolks of the eggs left in the container and put them back into the fridge. On the following morning I kissed her and rolled over while she went down to make breakfast.
I think my parents, living a few towns away, heard her scream when she cracked green eggs into the frying pan. I miss her, she was a good girlfriend.
Photo: PexelsGreen With Envy
College Prank Takes A Dark Turn
When I was in college I lived with 2 guys who were just about as crazy as they come. I liked to have fun, but I am way more collected than they are. Anyway, we had a few girls that we hung out with all the time who all lived together. One day after several beers and maybe a few other party favors, we find a dead snake in our yard. What better thing to do with it than staple it to our girl friends' front door?!
Several hours and boxes of wine later we realize we haven't heard from them in a while and want to go see if they'd found our little surprise. We got over there and it wasn't on the door anymore, so we decided to prank them a little more so they really knew it was us.
They had the 3 little windows over their front door, and being a tall kid I was able to reach in and unlock it.
When we got into their house we moved all their furniture around, so they'd wake up and everything would be repositioned in the house. Harmless, right? Well on the way out, one of my roommates decided to put a pack of ramen noodles in their microwave and turn it on (he doesn't remember doing this at all).
We don't know how long he put it on for but it was long enough to catch the microwave on fire.
The fire alarms in the house didn't work and the fire slowly filled up the house with smoke. Eventually one of the girls, very lucky for me, woke up. She frantically ran for the door to her room, but low and behold there was a couch moved in front of it.
And the outward opening door was jammed shut as her room filled with smoke.
Her screaming woke up one of the other roommates who was able to get out of her room and move the couch. The third and final roommate lived there, unbeknownst to the landlord, in the attic... which now had an oven blocking the door. She never got out of her room but sat in it crying as the other 2 girls got the fire department out there to put out the fire and save her life.
They say it was the most traumatizing thing to ever happen to them and still won't talk to me. The police hounded them to press charges for days, but they declined understanding it was a joke gone terribly wrong.
Photo: Unsplash
Chilling Consequences
It was a freezing cold night on campus. The evening began with a fraternity/sorority exchange between neighboring houses. A good time was had and much alcohol was consumed. Being a weeknight most of the young ladies responsibly called it a night early.
One trouble making young lady stayed behind for a private party with two impressionable young men who happened to share a room. One of these young men was drunk enough to express his appreciation of the young lady's beauty. He shall be called Romeo. Romeo's roommate was able to adequately follow suit. He shall be referred to as Tag.
These expressions were abnormally easy for the impressionable young men because they were the absolute Truth. This young trouble making lass was a knockout. She shall be affixed with the moniker of DD.
More drinks were consumed. Laughter, music and proclamations of beauty filled the air. DD removed her top and explained to the young men that it was possible to drink whiskey from between her beautiful breasts if they were held in the proper manner.
Romeo and Tag were extremely impressed! Whiskey was lapped from the grail as if the young men were kittens at the milk saucer. Romeo was desperately racking his intoxicated mind for the inspiration needed to invent the shot when DD called for a cigarette break.
The three young humans donned their winter attire and stepped outside.
While the burning of sticks ensued the conversation naturally turned to the nature of the unusually cold weather. The question of exactly how quick water would freeze was pondered. It was decided that water would turn to ice in a quick enough manner to be utilized maliciously. Recalling the tongue sticking hilarity of A Christmas Story led to the fact that DD's sorority across the street had dual metal doors at its entrance.
A plan was quickly organized. Two long sections of hose were attached and strung across the street. Water was brought forth and Operation Ice In had begun.
Unfortunately temperatures were not as extreme as they were drunkenly perceived to be. Operation Ice In was declared a failure at around 0300. The three pranksters had also destroyed the jovial nature of the night in the process.
Drunk and frozen they retired for the night. Romeo and DD warmed one another while Tag was left bitter and cold in his bunk.
DD awoke to her alarm slightly before seven and hoped to infiltrate the compound with a ninja's grace. Romeo was more than willing to help in order to secure future liaisons with the young beauty. She was escorted across the way and stealthed into her room with an unlocked window.
Romeo kept to the shadows and ventured back. As he reached his destination he turned for a wistful glance at the house that housed his newfound beauty. Just in time to see the first of the sororities young women exit for an early class. She was hurrying down the brick lined pathway leading from the entrance where Operation Ice In had failed.
And just as quickly her feet found themselves above her head as she landed squarely on her upper back. Romeo quickly realized that Operation Ice In had become a disaster in the making.
He quickly hurried over to the fallen young lady and helped her up. Said miss was crying and in pain but grateful for the help. She was escorted back inside and Romeo ran back to rouse Tag. He was unwilling to wake to the point of comprehension due to a monster hangover.
Romeo was forced to pull him to the floor and kick him. Now awake the two ventured back outside to ponder a plan.
Alas they were too late. As they approached the exit they witnessed a group of three beautiful young ladies fall right before the brick steps leading down from the path to the road. Within moments the crashing bodies were screaming in pain.
Two at the bottom of the steps. One hit her head and suffered a concussion along with a laceration that spurted a generous amount of blood. Another had broken her tail bone. An ambulance was called by Romeo. Overwhelmed by guilt Romeo and Tag confessed. Help was gathered and buckets of warm water were brought in to melt the disaster.
Tag and Romeo were left with a substantial bill from the hospital.
The troublemaker of a young lady called DD left out the confession. Tag and Romeo reaped the benefits of this decision for a while to come.
Romeo in a fairly direct manner and Tag through DD's expression to friends that he is actually a good guy who made a terrible drunken decision. Backfire declared worth it.
Photo: Pexels
Locks, SashBolts and Camera
At my high school it was traditional to pull pranks on the night before the last day of school. People actually got pretty inventive, and for the few years leading up to my final day, it had escalated to teachers on watch with night vision goggles and local police patrolling the school perimeter.
Anyway, a time-tested tradition was to break into the school's clock tower and sign your name on the inside. There are dated signatures going back hundreds of years, including some now-teachers I believe.
However, a few years before I left, some morons accidentally damaged the clock mechanism itself, and so security was stepped up. The hatch to the clock tower (located in a ceiling two meters up) was locked by two closed-shackle padlocks.
The lower floor to the building it was in was completely impenetrable, all windows sealed and the doors had electronic locks and deadlocks (even if you could get through the deadlocks, breaching an electronic lock takes 200 lbs of force and triggers an alert).
The upper floor windows were double-hung sash windows and secured in three ways: two sash locks (partially threaded bolts that go through both window panes); two wood screws going through both panes; and a traditional double-hung window latch.
Did I mention that the school had security cameras everywhere?
So I, 18 years old and filled with inspiration from cadet force training" and watching Ocean's Eleven six times (twice in the cinema), came up with a plan. I had two partners in crime who we will call A and B. B bought a lock picking kit and had been practicing on padlocks (and in fact any lock he got his hands on around the school) for months, and was pretty good at cold picking a lock.
We got an A1 print-out of the school grounds and mapped out the security cameras as best we could, making excuses to visit the room with the monitors in to get a better idea of their range. We started doing dry runs at night to see if we could get onto the school roof (the lower level of the building was larger than the upper, so there was a nice place to stand while entering a second-floor window) without being detected, while I procured the last of the equipment we needed.
I bought a set of sash locks plus key, two closed-shackle padlocks with an uncanny resemblance to those on the hatch, and borrowed two short and one long wood screws, some nails, blue tack and a hacksaw from the tech department.
We went up the night before and put the long wood screw through the window panes, from the outside. This ensured the windows would feel secure after the rest of our actions, when they were checked at the end of the school day.
I cut two bolts for sash locks in half with the hacksaw, and we snuck into the school corridor during lesson time to make the switch. The windows were all on a long corridor except for one, which would have been invisible if it didn't face a classroom which had a lot of windows on its door.
Conveniently A4-sized windows, most of which were covered in adverts for some society or another. A quick trip to the IT room and all of them were.
Quickly switched out the sash bolts and wood screws that were holding the windows shut. Replaced the screws holding the latch in with nails and a little blutack (so they were firm but removable).
Absolutely nerve wracking for five minutes, and then we had to wait until the night. It was go-time!
That night we sneak up, undo our wood screw, and gain entry to the building, evading what seems to be a solitary security guard. We wait quietly in the corridor while someone enters the building, moves around a little, and then leaves. Guess they got what they came for.
They walk off outside, whistling unmistakably - it's the deputy headmaster. Nerves are pretty strung at this point.
We make a quick pyramid out of desks and chairs to reach the hatch. The padlocks aren't special, just Master ones, but the awkward angle makes it hard. The first one falls after fifteen tense minutes, B picking, myself and A keeping guard. We hear the door again.
We huddle, nervous. The sound of footsteps resonates up the stairwell, shortly followed by the flash of a torch. Only one class of staff member uses a torch instead of turning on the lights.
We ditch out of the window and lie out of sight on the roof. Eventually the light goes away, and we split. A wants to abort immediately, but I want to tear down our set-up so we can try again another night. B is with me and we head back in.
Snap our cheap yale lock on the hatch, disassemble the pyramid, head to the window. The flashlight re-appears, as does the word "héy!". We disappeared.
We're on the roof, but now the flashlight is coming at us through the windows. We need to make our escape fast. The route was already planned, but will take us past the same door the security guard used to get into the building - and his most likely exit point (following us off the roof seems a pretty unlikely move for someone who looks like he wouldn't be able to get up without assistance if he ever fell directly on his back).
B doesn't hesitate and jumps down from the roof, landing on solid concrete, rolling, and already running. I gingerly lower myself from the edge (I have never liked heights), drop, land badly. I hear a crack. It's ok, just my glasses hitting the ground.
Grab them and run. Ankle feels sprained. Don't care. Too much adrenaline. I ran the fastest three hundred meters I've ever run in my life.
Later that night my foot is killing me. I went to hospital in the morning (after sitting through a math test, as the matron doesn't believe anything is wrong with me, and getting shouted at for not wearing my school shoes - "My foot is too swollen to physically wear them" "you could have worn one on your good foot!").
My cover story at school was that I'd jumped down some stairs (and yes, when revealing this myself and A did pull off the "Fight Club" routine. I need to watch fewer movies).
After enough cockups and poor care by the National Health Service to warrant a malpractice suit, I was left with a minor fracture in my metatarsal and ripped almost every muscle from my toe to my knee.
Six weeks on crutches and to this day (5 years later) that leg is still weak.
Luckily none of us got in serious trouble - we officially denied it, but the admin staff knew it was me. I was chummy with them, and I gave them back the sash locks etc and they let it by. I think they were more impressed than mad.
Photo: Unsplash
Email Prank Goes Sour
My grandfather is a pretty smart guy, he's an engineer and has spent a lot of time studying climate change and urban dangers to animals. One of the things he hates most is aspartame, which is primarily made by a company called Monsanto.
Now he really really hates Monsanto and is very vocal about it and has protested against some of the stuff they've done. So one year I decided it would be hilarious to convince him that Monsanto is spying on him.
So what do I do? I make a fake email account something along the lines of "[email protected]" and then send him a long email about how the Monsanto corporation has been spying on him for years and they are on to his methods and will ensure that he doesn't do anything more in his war against aspartame.
I then went on to say that Monsanto is constantly watching him including this very moment, and then described his computer room in detail. I told him that unless he stops immediately we will be forced to take action against him.
So it backfired pretty hard because he freaked the heck out which I'm sure isn't good for his health, wiped his computer which had lots of research information on it, and went incommunicado for a bit.
When he found out it was a joke he was really mad and we didn't talk about it again...FAIL.
Photo: Unsplash
Slip and Slide
When I was around 9 or 10 years old, our elderly neighbor used to yell at us (my two brothers and I) from his backyard if we were playing too loud. It went on for a while (probably over a year) and even if we tried to consciously be quiet (as quiet as a 12, 10 and 7 year old can be) he would still burst open his back door and dart out and start yelling at us and telling us how we were the worst kids ever.
Come April Fool’s day we were thinking of a good prank to pull on our parents when my older brother said we should pull one on the neighbor. Because it was always the same routine, the old guy would burst open his sliding back door and run to the end of his deck (which was pretty large I remember) and yell at us, my brother wanted to oil down the deck so that he would slip and fall on his butt or something.
Me and my older brother hopped the fence (my younger brother chickened out and stayed on our side of the fence and said that he would be the watchout guy) and oiled a pathway from the old guy's back door to the stairs on the deck.
We used veggie oil I remember as we were going to use soap first but didn't think it would work. Sure enough, without fail, the old guy came running out when my brothers and I started screaming and singing loudly in our backyard.
This time as the guy burst open the door and ran out he started to scream at us when all of a sudden the scream turned into a shrill and he slipped and hit the deck with a huge thud and slid right off, down the stairs (about 7 of them) and onto his back lawn.
Surprisingly me and my brothers weren't happy with the result as we got freaked out because the guy was just laying there and not moving. We ran inside into our rooms (my younger brother and I shared one). My younger brother was crying and I was close to it.
Time passed (I remember a good amount of time as a whole episode of Inspector Gadget finished) and I heard my Dad yelling in the backyard. Apparently my neighbor was still laying on the back lawn and my Dad hopped the fence and called 911. Years passed and I never asked my parents about what happened to my neighbor as I never saw him again.
I was afraid that we killed him. New people moved into the house next door and everything. It wasn't until about 6 years ago I brought it up to my parents and they mentioned that he shattered his hip and a few other bones and never could walk the same again so he had to move in with his sister or something that's why he moved. Still, as relieved as I was that we didn't kill him, it still sucked that we...well.... damaged him!
Photo: Unsplash
Payback
A friend and I had been living together for several years when we decided to rent a larger house and get a roommate. Keep in mind that the friend and I had been playing minor practical jokes on each other on and off since we met.
The new roommate was a bit of a wake and bake pot smoker from day one, but otherwise a really cool guy and paid his rent on time. The only major problem was he peed all over the bathroom when he was stoned. Whatever the reason for it, pot just drove his aim completely off and there would be urine everywhere.
One night after he had passed out in bed, we decided that he just needed to be taught a lesson about bathroom etiquette when he was sober, so we put some saran wrap around the toilet bowl. I had played this trick once before on someone else to great effect- the prankee got urine all over himself in the middle of the night after a hard night drinking.
Just pure evil, I know, but hilarious if you like low brow humor. And what good practical joker doesn't?
Unfortunately we didn't anticipate the new roommates' complete lack of humor when not stoned. When I got home from work that afternoon there was a note on the counter explaining that he had moved out (days before the rent was due) because he wouldn't live with people that would play practical jokes like that, and he was going to have his brother who worked in law enforcement make our lives miserable (we both got numerous speeding tickets in the weeks that followed- I literally had to file a complaint to get it to stop)
Photo: Unsplash
Workplace prank war
Back in 2016, I worked at a military surplus/camping store in Minneapolis Minnesota with a couple of crazy guys who loved pranking each other. Lu, who was my boss, and Jonah who was a shift manager. We all had sick senses of humor and used to prank each other all the time. Nothing was off limits.
We would shoot each other with paintballs, hit each other with stun guns, but the most popular prank in our inventory was when we would cause the other person a great deal of stress by claiming the store was robbed, accusing the other person of stealing money from the register, or faking an injury. These types of pranks would always conclude with the phrase “dumbos always worry”.
For instance, one day when I was helping a customer in the back of the store, Lu grabbed my car keys and gave them to Jonah. Jonah then moved my car down to the other side of the building out of sight, and proceeded to smash a glass bottle where my car originally was.
Essentially replicating a Grand theft auto situation. After I was finished with the customer, Lu looked over at me and said “oh you’re still here? I thought you left” to which I replied “why would you think that?”. He then said “well I just saw your car leave about 10 minutes ago...” I ran outside to see my car gone, and broken glass littered all over the ground where it once was parked.
I started freaking out and hyperventilating. I went inside cussing up a storm telling Lu and Jonah “call the cops, my freaking car just got jacked. Jesus Christ!”.. And with the dirtiest grin on their faces, Lu looked at me and said “dumbos always worry”
I gotta hand it to them. They got me good, but that was nothing compared to what they did later that year.
It was maybe 6 months after the carjacking prank. At this point, we almost spent more time pranking each other than actually working. One night, after closing up and going home, I get a text from Jonah. I can’t remember what the text said verbatim, but it said something along the lines of “yo, what that junk do bruh?”.
I laughed and replied with “lmao off yourself dude”.. what can I say, we all had a gross sense of humor back then. Anyway, I was expecting him to reply with some smart comments, but he never did. I eventually forgot about it and went to bed.
The next day I pull up to work and walk in. I see Lu on the phone with someone and he’s visibly in tears. Keep in mind, this guy was a 200+ pound marine, and the last thing I would ever expect to see him doing is crying.
He continues talking on the phone when he notices me walking in. He says “hold on, he’s here” and sets the phone down. He looks at me and says “come with me”. He starts leading me to the manager's office and I ask him “What the heck is going on? Who were you taking to?”.
He told me that he was just on the phone with the Minneapolis police department, and they informed him that they had just discovered Jonah’s abandoned car by the Stillwater Lift Bridge.
Apparently Jonah had broken up with his girlfriend of 6 years the night before and they suspected he had committed it, but couldn’t find his body. Lu could hardly make it through a sentence without choking up, and was constantly wiping the tears from his cheek. Assuming my friend and coworker had just taken his own life, I began to cry as well.
Lu then told me that the police had apparently retrieved Jonah’s cell phone near his car. They saw I was the last person to text him and a couple detectives wanted to ask me a couple questions. My heart immediately sank. It was then that I remembered the text I sent him the night before.. Oh my god, what have I done? Did I just tell that to a depressed man? I mean.. that’s how we joked with each other. We were all equally brutal, and the phrase “off yourself” got tossed around all the time, so I initially thought nothing of it.
Lu walked me into the manager's office, tears running down both our faces at this point. He picks up the phone and transfers the call from the lobby phone to the office phone. He hands it to me, and doing my best to keep myself from bursting into incoherent tears, I say “hello?”
There's silence.. Suddenly the voice on the other end says “dumbos always worry”. It was Jonah.. I pulled the phone away and looked at Lu who was now laughing hysterically. Give that man an Emmy cause that was the performance of the century.
My tears began to boil from my cheeks and I just started swinging and tackled Lu to the ground, him laughing the whole way down.
I wish I could say that I got them back just as good as they got me, but sadly there’s wasn’t anything that could top that
Photo:Pexels
The Freaking New Guys
When I was in the Marines, I was standing guard (stateside, no real threat) and it is guaranteed that FNGs (freaking new guys) get messed with, especially in the wee hours of the morning when no one is around. We stood guard 24/7, in 4-6 hour shifts.
FNGs always got posted by themselves in towers, which were basically 90 ft tall cement pillars with a tiny (about 6' x 6') room on top, out in the middle of the woods.
It was well known lore in the company that a Marine had put his M16 on three-round burst, and blown his head off in one of these towers one night in the late 80's, and we always told the new guys that you could hear strange noises in that tower.
There was still a mark on the wall that was supposedly where one of the bullets struck when it exited his skull.
The way the towers were set up, you either had to have the key to get in the door at the bottom, or the guy at top could push a button and release the door to let you in. Either way, an alarm sounded to let him know the door was open.
The lights in the metal stairwell leading to the top were either dim, or non-existent, so a guy standing at the top looking down the hatch couldn't really see all the way to the bottom.
Well, on one middle-of-the-night post, we let the FNG in and he climbed up and relieved the off-going sentry. I left, and left a friend lingering just inside the door at the base of the tower. The friend waits about 15 minutes in silence, then starts making just a little bit of noise, knocking quietly on pipes and stuff with his helmet in the darkness.
FNG starts calling it in on the radio, and we tell him not to worry about it. The friend starts pounding louder and louder, and eventually, it's just rhythmic clang, clang, clang,clang. FNG calls it in again, sounding ever so nervous, and gets told to stand by.
Then the friend kicks the tower door open from the inside, which sets the alarm off. FNG has a CCTV view of the outside of the door in the top of the tower, and sees it fly open. The friend starts running up the metal stairs in the dark, screaming.
FNG starts screaming too, slams the hatch at the top of the tower, grabs his rifle and *racks a freaking round and clicks off safe.*
Friend hears the unmistakable sound of the bolt going home, and realizes he's probably a few steps away from getting shot. Stops, calls out to the FNG, lets him know he's just being messed with. The round-racking thing was a big freaking deal in our command though, as it basically was the third or fourth step in the escalation of force up to deadly force, and was supposed to be reported up the chain whenever it occurred (which was hardly ever).
Fortunately, we smoothed things over with the FNG and no one ever found out. Good thing too, cause the next guy at that command who racked a round when it wasn't required got kicked out of the military.
Photo: Pexels
Chocolate Laxatives
This was around sophomore year of high school. For reasons lost to time, a couple of friends of mine (twins) thought it would be funny to trick me into eating some chocolate laxatives they'd gotten their hands on. The chocolates looked just like Hershey's (after they scratched the L's off).
So their plan was to give everyone at their get-together some chocolates, but the inconspicuous-looking laxatives to me. However, they made the mistake of telling another friend what they were planning... who then promptly informed me about it (lesson: know your position in the hierarchy of friends before blabbing to everyone about your insidious plans... who do you think you are, Dr. Evil?).
A few hours before the get-together, I went to the pharmacy, bought a Hershey's bar, as well as a small bottle of an extremely powerful liquid laxative. You can probably see where this is going...
Conveniently for me, we were all hanging around their chest-high trampoline when they started offering everyone the chocolate.
Now, at this point I feel the need to editorialize a bit and say that their handling of it at this moment was pretty pathetic, and I don't think I would have bought it for a second even without prior knowledge (especially considering how the chocolate laxatives had only the vaguest resemblance to regular chocolates... plus, seriously, who breaks apart, plates, and arranges Hershey bars?), but I digress...
Anyway, with the trampoline as my cover, I toss the chocolates they gave me into the grass and start to eat the real Hershey bar I'd been keeping hidden.
The twins began giggling conspicuously almost immediately. Boy am I going to poop so hard! Haha! Shut up!
They started to ask leading questions, trying to gauge how close I am to dropping a Helen Hunt, then they're called inside — thoughtlessly leaving behind two half-empty cans of root beer. I saw my chance and I took it, filling the cans with the liquid laxative.
When they got back, they drank every last drop from those cans, still grinning and giggling like a couple of Japanese school girls hanging around the massagers at Sharper Image. They even remarked to one another that their root beer tasted funny, but drank it all anyway.
Anyway, long story short, Mr. and Mrs. Twin cracked and did that whole "booyah!" thing that people were so fond of in the late 90's. Only then I showed them the remains of the Hershey bar, and the empty laxative bottle, and explained what had just transpired.
Their faces went pale, but they somehow couldn't accept that their brilliant scheme had backfired. They outright refused to believe it... for about an hour.
After an hour I was convinced that because I'd split the whole bottle between the two of them, it wasn't enough to have any impact. Boy was I wrong. Turns out like 4 oz. of something you only need a teaspoon of is more than enough to get things moving. Things went from disappointing to hilarious to frightening in a hurry.
They went to the bathroom once, then twice, and then it was obvious that the stuff had worked. It got so bad that they began fighting with one another over the only bathroom in their house. I forget which one got in there first, but the other one was essentially out of luck. Not long after it started going downhill, everyone was ordered to leave the house.
Funny, because it was supposed to be a weekend-long camping sort of thing, but yeah, plans have a way of changing.
That was a Saturday, and they weren't heard from for the rest of the week. I felt terrible. Even if they were trying to do the same thing to me, I just felt awful about what they were going through.
I've always played pranks on friends and family, but I'm pretty faithful to the 5-minute rule, which is to say that if it ruins your life for more than 5-minutes, it's not really a prank anymore, it's just sadism. This is one of the rare exceptions, which I knew going in, but I didn't expect it to go as far as it did.
A few years later while in college I heard from a friend who attended the "event" about some of the grisly details. Allow me to illustrate in the least graphic way I possibly can at this hour: you know how when you're sick and you've puked out every last drop of undigested food and liquid, but your body just keeps trying to heave more up, even though there's nothing there?
Well imagine that same scenario... only with your anus... for days.
That was almost twelve years ago. I still have mixed feelings about what I did, and I don't talk to those guys anymore. Was it worth it? Not at all, since it was before the days of YouTube...
Photo: Pexels
Scream Therapy
When I was younger (around 8 and my younger sister was 6-ish), we just watched a scary TV show (can't remember if it was 'Are you Afraid of the dark' or 'goosebumps' or something) and the catchphrase of the monster at that time was **"BUGA BUGA BOO"**.
So a few days later, I hid in my sister's closet. She came into her room, and as she neared the closet, I jumped out yelling "BUGA BUGA BOO" at the top of my lungs. She was so scared that she ratted me out to my mum and I got in trouble.
But the look of fear on her face was priceless and it made for an awesome family story for years to come.
However, even after all these years, she never forgot and quietly plotted revenge. How do I know?
Last year when I was 21, I was taking a shower after a long day at work and trying to relax. Suddenly, I hear a shriek of "BUGA BUGA BOO" next to the shower curtain. Being a rather jumpy person, I immediately freaked out and screamed at the top of my lungs, slipped on the soap, banged my knee on the lip of the tub, and smashed my face into the wall.
Cruel laughter ensued from the other side of the shower curtain and I hung my head in shame.
Later my mom told me she heard me scream and was about to run up to see if I was okay but then she heard my sister laughing so thought everything was fine.
Sisters are vengeful creatures.
Photo: Pexels
The Sucker Punch
This was in the mid-90s, back when folks were just realizing all the disgusting stuff you could find on the internet. A coworker of mine forwarded me a video of some folks partaking in coprophilia, with the description of "Oh my God!" or something like that.
This was a few days before April Fool's Day -- seizing the opportunity, I went into my email program, and changed my account to have an email address that was one letter off from my real account, and I changed my outgoing name to something completely different.
Using this spoofed email address, I replied to the email she had sent me, making it look as though she had sent the video to the wrong address.
In the email, I pretended to be some tight-wad suburban dad who was sick of these "smut peddlers" on the internet. I also mentioned how I had two young daughters, and I "shudder to think what would have happened had they opened this email instead of me."
The kicker was that she had sent me the email from her school address. I continued in the email by telling her that I had already contacted both the authorities and the "Computer Services Department" at her university, who had assured me that her computing privileges would be revoked (she was a CS major, so this was especially scary to her).
She never said anything to me at work, and April Fool's Day came and went, without any response from her. I finally cracked, telling her, "gee, I tried to play a particularly cruel April Fool's Day joke on you, but you didn't bite."
When she asked me to elaborate, I spilled the beans. She immediately turned bright red, and told me we had to go outside, like, right now.
I followed her outside, snickering all the way. When we got outside, I was on the receiving end of a nice punch to the solar plexus. She yelled at me: "The reason I didn't say anything to you about it was because my lawyer told me not to say anything to anyone!"
Photo: Pexels
Fake Tax Returns
My friend owned his own business and was always whining about taxes. On April 1st, I sent a letter and forms stating he had *overpaid* his taxes. I mocked up an actual form from the IRS, and put my sister's phone number on it, so when they called to get his refund, she would give him a hard time and tell them it was a joke.
Problem #1: I put the wrong number (not my sister’s) on the form.
Problem #2: The form looked so realistic that they actually *took* to the IRS Federal building.
They realized it was not their form, and the clerk simply filed it. Then they finally figured out it was me. What a great joke! Hahahahaha.
In the meantime, the little old lady whose number I accidentally put on the form called the IRS and asked for them to *please* take her phone number off their form. This began a Federal investigation. My filed forgery was found. My friend was called — he *immediately* gave them my identity.
I get a call from a gruff sounding IRS agent. I'm laughing, saying "Who is this *really*?"
Cut to the end: I didn't have to go to jail because I put a teeny tiny happy face in the fine print at the bottom of the form.
Photo: Pexels
The Pandemic
I pulled a prank on my school back in high school for April Fool's. About 60 students and 20 staff were in it.
I convinced my friend's mom (who was a nurse) to swipe a bunch of doctor's masks from her hospital. In theory, this is how the plan was supposed to work: As soon as the first bell rang, everyone was instructed to wear the masks in the halls. Whenever someone asked them what was going on, they would say that a new pandemic had broken out and had affected most of the schools in the city. When asked why they didn't get a mask, the prankster would reply "They're only giving them to the smartest students".
After the third bell, the intercom announcer would reveal the prank to the school and everyone would breathe a healthy sigh of relief.
That's how it was supposed to work. What really happened:
We put on our masks after the first bell. Students started freaking out relatively quickly, and the news of a pandemic quickly spread throughout the school (ironically). When I saw the panic, I instructed some students to distribute the leftover masks in the halls. They almost got trampled, and when the masks ran out everyone went crazy. About 50% of students fled campus.
It was then that the principal advised our announcer to reveal the prank. Only problem was, the commotion was so loud in the halls that no one heard her. She had to wait until the next period, at which point everyone was still freaking out but slightly quieter.
All in all, 'twas a good day. I got the first 60 students and teachers to pitch in 2$ for their mask, and we gave the proceeds to cancer research. Some teachers gave 5,10,20 and even 50$. We raised a good 200 bucks that day.
Photo: Pexels
Eye Prank
When I was in maybe 3rd or 4th grade, I decided I would pull an April fool’s prank on my teacher that I couldn’t see the blackboard and needed glasses. Dumb, lame prank, but I thought I was so clever.
I get to class that morning and I’m squinting at the board, asking to move closer, and finally pull a pair of fake glasses out of my backpack to wear for the rest of class. My teacher was so concerned and said we should probably call my parents to get me to the eye doctor.
Wanting to continue the prank but I didn't know it would actually cause any issue, I told her I’d talk to my parents about it when I got home. She insisted though that it was urgent and that my parents would want to know right away, and before I could stop her she rushed out of the classroom, presumably to call my parents.
At this point I was freaking out. I tried to pull what I thought was a harmless prank but now my teacher is distraught and going to tell my parents, who are probably also going to be super worried. A minute later my teacher came back to get me, told me she called my parents and they’re on their way to pick me up and bring me to the eye doctor right away.
Now I’m terrified to tell her it was a prank cause I was just in too deep.
We got to the front office where my parents were waiting for me and they told me that we have to hurry to get to the eye doctor. Finally I start crying and apologizing that it was just a prank, and I could see fine, and I'm sorry for making them come down here and schedule an emergency eye doctor appointment!
My parents and my teacher burst out laughing. They freaking pranked me right back. My parents must have heard me telling my sister about my amazing prank, told my teacher all about it, and they all decided to mess with me and make me think I had done something terrible.
Crap they got me, I still remember how awful I felt before I realized they were pranking me too.
Photo: Unsplash
Down The Drain
In college, I had a roommate who was a little unstable, but I didn't know it at the time. April Fools had rolled around and I decided to play an innocent prank on him.
I got a bunch of the guys from across the hall together in the bathroom of the dorm. I had gone to the local drugstore and bought a toothbrush that matched my roomie's. We then proceeded to take pictures of each of us cleaning the bathroom floor and the toilet with this toothbrush. Then we took pictures of some of the guys sticking the toothbrush down their pants.
Then we went and took pictures of us rubbing it in some dog poop. We basically went through and tried to use it in the nastiest possible places.
We then waited until he woke up and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. We scattered all the pictures across his desk and his bed (about 40 total) and then waited for him to get back. He saw the pictures and flipped the heck out.
He threw his CRT off the desk onto the ground and punched and kicked the door to the dorm. He knocked down a wall mirror and it shattered all over the place. He threw our room phone across the way and then slammed the door shut after running out screaming, breaking the handle and lock to the door.
This was all before we were able to tell him it was a prank and how we did it. It was the most unexpected, hilarious (yet scary) result to any April Fools prank I've pulled.
Photo: Pexels
Salt Bae
When I was young I switched the salt and sugar (they were both in jars, not the bulk containers they were bought in.)
The evil I didn't realize is that my mom is the only one who puts sugar in her coffee but my dad makes it for both of them. So she keeps getting mad because the coffee tastes weird and he keeps going back and adding more "sugar" to cover the taste. They ended up getting into quite an argument before they caught on.
Anyways, I was found out and every so often for the next month my milk would have a ton of salt in it. I told my mom she was only allowed to do that April 1st but she was mad and not playing by the rules. So many salty drinks, and they surprised me each time.
Photo: Pexels
When Pranks Turn Fatal
The 6th grade bully (henceforth known as Freakingface) who secretly broke my little brother's inhaler on purpose, knowing he had asthma, as a joke. He broke the little button off and put it back in his backpack.
Four hours later, my brother died after running a lap in athletics because he couldn't stop an asthma attack.
Freakingface, whose friends turned him in after three days of assuming he would do it himself, gets two days of in-school suspension. Are you freaking kidding me? Furthermore, when my parents ask for more retribution, his parents have the nerve to scold them with the exact words, "Kids will be kids, there was nothing Freakingface could do. There's no point pursuing petty revenge over something that couldn't have been stopped."
Three years later, I heard Freakingface make a small joke to his high school buddies about "[idiots] with inhalers", obviously referring to my brother. I break his nose, and get a restraining order against me.
That was all we got, never even saw an apology, from Freaking face or his family. Just a letter from the school. Freakingface currently attends Texas State university and drives a BMW that his parents gave him (they're defense attorneys).
I hate talking about this because he was my little bro and he loved Harry Potter and his favorite subject was English and he played first base on his little league team and just messed everything up.
I refuse to believe the world knows justice more than it knows evil, and if it weren't for my dog needing me out of prison, I probably would've gone after the guy by now.
Freakingface was a minor and the death was ruled 100% accidental. He is not legally implicated at all, and as far as the state is concerned, he is completely unrelated to my little bro in any way other than being in his grade.
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When Prankster Meets Genius Mastermind
My mom and aunt decided to pull a prank on my uncle (their brother.) My uncle was always a big prankster so they were excited to be able to pull a prank on him.
One day, one of them wrote a fake love letter and stashed it in my uncle's car, hoping my uncle's wife would find it. It was somewhat graphic if I remember correctly, but this happened a long time ago so I don't know for sure.
Fast forward a few days, and we're all at my grandparents' house. My uncle pulls into the driveway and drives around to the back of the house. He comes sulking in through the back door, noticeably distraught, and nearly in tears.
My mom and aunt asked what was wrong. He said his wife found a love letter from some woman in his car and lost her cool.
He said he tried to tell her he didn't know where it came from, but of course, she didn't believe him. She wanted him gone. She wanted a divorce.
At this point, my uncle leaves the house and goes out and just sits in his car for several minutes. My grandma goes outside with him to talk to and console him. My mom and my aunt are freaking out because their joke has now ruined my uncle's marriage.
When my uncle returns, my mom and aunt admit to everything. They wrote the letter. They knew he wasn't cheating. They decided to call my uncle's (possibly soon-to-be-ex) wife and tell her what had happened.
After several minutes on the phone trying to convince her it was all a joke, they hung up dejectedly. She didn't believe them. They were all siblings. Of course they would lie to help their brother.
My uncle comes into the room to ask how the conversation went. My mom and aunt are pretty much crying as they tell him that they could not convince her it was a joke. They apologize profusely. My uncle can't handle it and goes back to his car for a while longer.
At this point, my mom and aunt are at a loss. They have no idea what to do.
Some time later my uncle comes back inside. After letting them wallow in guilt for a while, he confesses that he knew they wrote the letter from the beginning. He recognized the hand-writing. He showed his wife and told her about it.
She recognized the writing, too, so she knew it was meant to stir things up.
My uncle knew my mom or my aunt would end up calling her to confess. He told her what to do when they called so the prank could be flipped back on them. It was a huge success. They never attempted to prank him again.
Also, when my grandma went out to console him, he told her everything, so she was kinda in on it, too. He also said the reason he had to go sit in the car for so long was because he almost lost it (laughing) a couple of times and had to calm himself before he could keep talking to them about it.
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Rain On My Parade
There was a guy I'd gone to school with since second grade. He was last picked in gym class, cried if the team he was on lost a game, wore his Boy Scouts uniform to school when he didn't need to, was president of the stamp club and a tattle-tale. Also, if memory serves, he smelled like pee.
I'd dealt with his shenanigans for years and one day in 7th grade, I decided to pull his seat out from under him. The entire auditorium laughed and I strutted across stage in some freaking victory lap, waiting for him to seal the deal as a loser, and cry.
As I headed back to my seat, his face reddened and tears welled. He was packing up his backpack. I'd won, I would rule Jr High! I flopped into my seat like the queen of the world and landed on the freaking floor. That little punk pulled the seat out from under me! It'd scraped my back on the way down and broke my bra strap. I felt the red face.
My back hurts. Freaking tears. There are going to be tears. That's when I realized the teacher saw him do it. I looked at her, waiting for her to punish him for picking on a girl. She sensed this and looked me straight in the eye and said "feminism means equal treatment. Congratulations on being a real feminist."
Total attitude adjustment moment for me. He's the only person I went to school with I am still friends with.
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Moving Houses
When I was flatting with friends, there were 3 of us in the house. One day, me and another guy decided to tell the 3rd person that we'd been kicked out, and that we needed to pack our stuff and move out.
The idea was that he would put all his stuff in boxes, and then we'd tell him we were lying, and he'd have to unpack all his stuff.
Well, what really happened was he just threw all his stuff in his car, strapped his bed to the car roof, and drove away, all the while me and the other guy were watching tv, waiting for him to 'finish packing his stuff into boxes'.
A couple hours later we noticed he wasn't actually home. By then, he'd unpacked all his stuff at his parents house and was setting up there.
We weren't pleased at all. "What kind of joke is that? It's not even *funny*.."
He didn't speak to us for a few days.
One of our friends shouted at him at the pub, he came around.
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When Dishwashers Strike Back
I worked for a non-profit camp for most of my life, and one summer we had a new large commercial dishwasher with a pressure tank that had a bad valve of some sort. Every now and then, the whole machine would vibrate and make some terrible noise. It happened with regularity, but the manufacturer assured us that the machine was fine and the problem was just an annoyance.
One of the senior staff members happened to have one of those "X10" wireless switches (yes, the ones that had horrible pop ups/pop under ads a decade ago), as well as a rotating car-top emergency light (like one you would see on an emergency vehicle).
During our "pre-camp" training, we decided it would be fun to install the light on top of the dishwasher, with the X10 wireless switch programmed to it.
Essentially, anyone in the kitchen area who knew where the secret switch was could turn on this giant rotating light.
When it came time to train our new staff, we told them about a faulty pressure tank that can easily exceed the manufacturer's recommended pressure and explode. We told them that the camp, being a non-profit, couldn't afford the incredible expense to fix it, but instead installed an alarm system to let us know to evacuate the premises immediately.
Once evacuated to a safe distance, the most senior staff member had to go in and disengage the pressure system to relieve some pressure (in reality, go in and turn off the light).
The new staff bought the story - hook, line and sinker. Why they believed that a camp (a camp that spends weeks training their staff to ensure a safe place for children and was ACA accredited...) would put their staff in mortal danger to save a few bucks on fixing a dishwasher is beyond me, but they bought it.
The trouble is, they bought too much. The first couple of times we jokingly set off the alarm, the results were amazing. The staff literally dropped what they were doing (in one case, carrying a stack of plates!) and bolted out of the building. In another case, a screen door was broken because of the urgency to leave.
In another case, a staff member was nearly in tears yelling at another one for leaving a child in the building. It got to the point where the director actually had to talk to some of the staff member's parents to assure them that we were not placing their kids in danger, but it was a practical joke that had gone on too long.
I remember distinctly one afternoon that summer, a new staff member (let's call him "Dan") walked up to me...he was pale and you could tell he was pretty stressed. He said: "Peter, I just saw your name on the dishwashing schedule for tonight. You're the head dishwasher. The alarm went off twice today. May God be with you!" - and he was completely serious.
When we eventually got a call from one of the dishwasher's manufacturer's reps who had heard about the potentially deadly dishwasher at the camp, and after explaining to him the situation (which he thought was hilarious), we decided that enough was enough and we had to put an end to the joke.
We decided the best way to soften the blow was for the "new" staff (which was all male) to play the joke on the incoming new female staff.
We took all the new staff in a room with the switch and the light and explained/apologized for the joke that had terrorized their summer.
We explained in detail. We actually had to convince them that this was a prank, because at this point they were accustomed to putting their lives in danger for the "good of the camp." They eventually understood what it was, but even near the end one of the guys said: "So wait, the dishwasher won't explode?"
There didn't seem to be any hard feelings, and the following week they had the opportunity to prank the incoming female staff.
They took them through the same training, with the backing of the senior staff. However, not a single one of the women believed it.
In the end, only one of the new male staff members returned the following summer.
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Going Off The Script
I worked at a summer camp. At the beginning of every week we got a new group of campers, and on the first day we would do a demonstration to explain to everyone how to go through the mess line and get your food before meals. It was always done by two certain members of camp management, and my last year working there I ended up having been promoted to one of those spots, so myself and the other guy (we'll call him Alex, 'cuz that's his name) were the ones doing the demonstration
Now this was a scripted thing that had been done at the camp for decades, so neither of was going to deviate from the script.
The way it went was I'd go through the mess line, get a plate of food from the kitchen crew, and come back eating it as I walked, Alex would ask me how it was, I'd offer him some, he'd take a bite, I'd go sit down, and then he'd explain how to clear your trays and such-- I'd have to gulp down my food really quickly while he insists I go clear my tray, usually to many laughs from the campers as I stuff my food in my face before clearing my tray.
Same thing, every week, been done like that since the first time I'd been there as a camper and for many years previously.
The meal on this day was: green beans, garlic bread and spaghetti.
So about the 4th or 5th week of campers, I decide to get cheeky and when I go to get my plate from the kitchen, I pour a ton of salt over half the piece of garlic bread. I walk out eating spaghetti like normal, he asks as usual "how is it?" so, as usual, I break off a piece of the garlic bread (the salted half, of course) , hand it to him, and go sit down.
He takes a bite and makes a hilarious face, "yeah, um... delicious....," finishes his explanation to the campers without swallowing, then after finishing goes and spits the bread in the trash, gets a sip of water, and punches me in the arm the next time he sees me. Hilarious, right?
Well, the cooks thought it was a riot, being able to see out through the door as Alex ate the bread and then ran in to spit it up. However, because of the angle of the door, they can't see the part of the demonstration involving me stuffing my face full of food, which would lead to my eventual downfall.
So, the next week, same spiel. Alex explaining the way the line works, me acting it out, go up, grab my food from the cook, and reach for the saltshaker to repeat the same hilarious joke, because if there's anything funnier than seeing someone stomach a disgustingly salty piece of garlic bread, it's seeing them do it when they know it's coming and have no choice but to continue: such is the way of kayfabe.
But as I'm reaching the salt, the cook shakes his head and smiles at me. "Oh no no, I already took care of it real good for ya"
I didn't really comprehend what he meant, so I looked at the plate and back at him.
"Salted the bread up for you, plus the tomato sauce is like 70% hot sauce and the string beans were soaked in lemon juice."
He had the biggest smile on his face; being stuck in the kitchen while the rest of us do fun camp stuff, he doesn't get to be in on the jokes very often, and he thinks that him helping me prank Alex is doing me a huge favor and the funniest thing in the world.
I don't know what the look on my face was like, but the cook can tell I don't think the joke is as hilarious as he seems to think it is, so he asks to confirm "Alex has to eat that, right?"
And I just shake my head and walk out the door as Alex gets to the part of the demonstration where I give him a piece of food. I break the bread in half, and he looks suspiciously before grabbing the piece I left on my tray instead of the piece in my hand.
He thinks he's really clever for about a second, then he thinks I had outsmarted him, then he looks at me and sees I have taken no glee in his suffering, for mine will outpace his significantly.
He continues the demonstration and I have to forcibly stuff my face full of the most disgusting food I have ever eaten.
The cook had moved over to a window to watch and is just cracking up the entire time, and as I go to clear my plate 200 campers start laughing, too: not laughing at me goofily stuffing my face full of food as usually, but laughing because I'm crying from the sheer volume of hot sauce and can barely keep the disgusting bread/green beans down without puking.
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Programmer’s Oversight
For years I was running a tiny private forum for my friends and I to chat. So as a April's fool joke I made an index.htm page saying the domain name was shut down due to child pr0n and attached a huge justice dept logo to it
Long story short the prank went well and rewind 2 years later. I'm prepping for a trip out of the country and I go to the forum to say my goodbyes. And the page loads up with the same April's fool page. My heart stopped beating and I was in total fear.
In total panic I messaged almost everyone on the forum if they had something to do with this or posted something. I almost canceled my trip for fear of being stopped at customs at JFK airport (i'm olive/brown complexion and always flagged at airports because of my name).
Then it hit me to check the html source and I saw the message I wrote saying it was a prank.
That was probably the happiest I have ever been in life (until the recent birth of my daughter). Somehow the index.php file pointing to the forums was deleted and caused the index.htm file to be loaded.
BACKFIRED BIG TIME!
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Busted Tooth
So when I was a freshman in college my friends and I used to drive out to this field to partake in some less than legal activities since smoking near the dorms was much riskier. If you have ever been to the West Lafayette area we would take 26 all the way out past the airport and eventually take a left.
There was a llama farm that made a perfect loop for us to smoke and drive in peace.
During spring break my roommate and a friend and I contrived a plan to scare the crap out of two of our very good buddies. Here is how the plan was supposed to play out:
We were going to plant Pat in the field one night with a ski mask and hatchet. Meanwhile, Erica and I were going to pick up our friends, they probably wish to remain nameless, and get them very high with the new water pipe we had just purchased.
We were going to drive out to the field, stop in our usual spot and Pat was going to run up to the car and scare us (well them). Then Erica was going to drive around our loop returning to the spot where Pat had jumped out at us and he would be standing there with the mask off, smoking a cigarette and we would laugh about it and all would be well.
Obviously that's not what happened since this post is about pranks backfiring.
Instead of going around our loop, Erica, who had also partaken in the water pipe activities, forgot the plan and turned around about 300 yards from Pat. Now, our two friends who were in the backseat are terrified and screaming at her to turn back around and my favorite scream, "Drive you dumb fool, DRIVE!"
Pat, seeing us turn around, assumes that either we told our friends or they figured it out and as Erica approaches him, he tries to get into the car, still donning the ski mask. Again, with bad planning or mistake planning, the car door was unlocked.
The next few seconds were very fuzzy due to the fact that I was laughing so hard I couldn't move and our two friends were screaming. Pat thought that friend 1 was moving over for him to get into the car, when really he was trying as hard as he could to get away from this masked, what he thought to be serial killer.
I know I had had the water pipe in my lap when all of this started, and I am not sure how it happened but friend 1 somehow got a hold of it and hit Pat in the mouth with it, hard. It actually broke (it was acrylic so no glass injuries thank goodness) and busted Pat's tooth in half.
As Pat was removing his mask, our two friends realized what exactly was going on.
I was still laughing too hard to talk, but I managed to rewind the tape recorder we had brought with us and played the tape back to the boys.
We had run this plan by a few of our other mutual friends and not a single person had warned us that maybe, just maybe the two guys we were pranking would be mad at us for scaring the living crap out of them.
Well they were. Incredibly. They didn't speak to me for almost 2 weeks and to this day they swear that they are going to get me back when I least expect it.
In the end, Pat had to get a fake tooth (he actually got a "super tooth" as he called it so he was happy) and I am still waiting for my payback. Which I am the only one they say is getting one because Pat destroyed the tape and Erica is no longer in contact with any of us. Lucky me!
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The 15 Year Old Egg
I just remembered a primary school incident that was really, really bad… We were playing during after-care, and playing where we were not supposed to be. And we noticed a whole bunch of stuff that had been thrown out the science lab a few hours before.
So we dug around looking for cool stuff, and we found an egg.
An ostrich egg to be precise. and it had been in the lab for ages… We've been talking a lot for years, and it really is an egg(not hollowed out).
So we had a 15 year old rotten ostrich egg, and didn't know what to do with it, until we saw the netball girls going to change...
But you have to understand, the change rooms had this weird "lock from outside" kind of fence/gate/thing.
So we gave them a few minutes, then tactfully lobbed the egg-grenade over the divider wall. Then locked the gate. With a stick.
All I can say is we were on the outside, and we thought it was disgusting beyond words, almost throwing up. In hindsight, I'm glad I wasn't the one on the inside when that egg landed.
We got into so much trouble for that one.
(side note: not as much trouble as we got into for playing hockey in the science lab)
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When Nerds Go Wild
It was the final day of exams for my senior year in high school. My band of friends and I were the stereotypical suck up nerds with aspirations with a streak of doing really stupid things, using our status as teachers' pets to get out of trouble.
We had gotten through the last exam fairly quickly and managed to get an admin to give us permission to leave the exam room (instead of having to wait until the exam period ended). Our plan was to meet up at a local restaurant for a celebratory lunch but, a fourth friend of ours was still stuck in another exam we had some time to kill.
The three of us made our way through the school to say goodbye to our favorite teachers and friends still stuck in exams. When one of the other alpha nerds in our group decides he wants to fight a kid in one of the classes we were visiting.
He flat out asks the teacher if the kid can be excused for a bit from the exam while they go "work something out". She obliges and they head off to the parking lot. Before the sissy shoving match begins, our friend takes off his ''nice'' shoes because he doesn't want to get grass stains on them.
Being an annoyed, attention deprived alpha nerd, I hatch a plan with the third friend to grab one of the shoes and to drive off, forcing him to either wait, or walk the half mile to the restaurant with only one shoe.
Well, our friend sees us put his shoe in the car and we start the car. He quickly runs to my, now locked, car trying to get in.
"Well screw you guys, if you won't let me in, I'm getting on"
And on the hood of the car he got. I started to drive slowly around the parking lot and figure "Hey, this place is a half mile away, let’s let him off there." So, onto the main road we go. About half way to our destination I ask "Man, it would suck if that white car up there is a police car", I don't think my friend on the hood heard me, as his response was "this is awesome, now I know how it feels to hitch a ride like in BF1942".
I saw that the white car up ahead had black paint on the sides (as most police cars do), so I pulled over before he even turned his lights on. Needless to say, the cop saw us, and wasn't happy.
A half hour and stern lecture later, I'm walking away with a reckless driving misdemeanor charge, and my friend on the hood with an aiding and abetting reckless driving citation. My cohort in the planning played the "I had nothing to do with this, I was already in the car" card and got nothing, which luckily for him worked because his dad would have straight up murdered him on the spot.
Thankfully, the DA laughed at my friend and I and declined to pursue the charges. However, anytime I have a job interview or background check I get to retell this story. So, this afternoon of stupidity will continue to fly up in my face.
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The Prank Call
Back in high school we thought prank calls were hilarious. I'm a decent liar but I never wanted to do mean calls, and those were the only kind my group of friends thought were funny, so I didn't really participate actively.
One time my friend called me and said he's going to make a prank call, and asked if I wanted to listen. I say sure, he hits flash and gets to the other line, then *67-dials someone randomly (anonymous call in the US) and then patches me into the first call.
A woman answers the phone, and my friend puts on a voice of authority and tells her that he's from the cable company. Apparently someone in her house has been ordering several porn videos, including "Anal Sluts 8", "Lesbian Gangbang", and makes up a bunch of other names.
Immediately the woman asks if this is a prank, and he says he wishes it was, but sadly this type of sick thing is all too common.
My friend then informs her that kids often screw around and order them, and the lady is now horrified. I can hear and feel how upset she is on the phone and she sounds like she's crying. My friend has balls of steel and no moral compass, so he doesn't let up.
He then tells her that there have been a couple gay pornos as well and lists some names, and that it's often husbands that order these.
The lady is hyperventilating on the phone and begging for us to tell her the dates and times, and by now my friend must be getting spooked because he's saying that his supervisor is asking for him and he has to go.
The lady screams that if this is a joke she will do everything possible to find us and get us arrested, and my friend says it absolutely isn't a joke and that she should keep an eye on her kids, and then he hangs up.
For months we were worried that we were going to be arrested, and I have no idea whatever happened to that woman and her hungry kids and gay husband. I never participated in another prank call, and like many other evil things I did during my high school years, I very much regret doing it and am thankful I wasn't caught.
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The Father That Terrorized His Kids
My dad has a habit of taking pranks a little too far, or at least pranking us when we were very young. When I was 9 or 10, I had a little egg of Silly Putty that I was playing with. I ended up making a very realistic fake thumb out of it (lived out in the country... very boring life). I showed it to my Dad who got this idea to mess with my 6 year old little brother.
He put the thumb on a cutting board, got a big knife out and put it against the thumb, and covered his hand and the cutting board in ketchup.
My older brother, Mom, Dad, and myself waited until we heard my little brother coming down the hall and all started screaming at the top of our lungs. He came running to the kitchen, saw the bloody thumb and started freaking out like us.
We started laughing, and showed him it was fake. He didn't talk to any of us until the next day, and was still very angry. We would have pranked my older brother instead, but I had already shown my fake thumb to him...
Also, when I was 8 or so, my Dad (who was a minister) and my brothers began walking home from church (really close to home). Just as we were leaving, I saw a caterpillar on the side of the church. I scrape it off into my hands, and excitedly go show it to my Dad. He gets this grin. I didn't know what that grin meant-- totally recognize it now.
He said, "Now son, those are very fragile, you need to protect it. Make sure you cover it with your other hand so nothing bad happens to it." So I take my other hand, cover the little hairy guy, and peek inside. My Dad claps his hands over my hands, ending my new friend's life between my palms.
I cried all the way home, my Dad apologizing the entire way.
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When The Joke Becomes Real
I worked at one of the nation's largest banks as a local wiring department manager. To mitigate fraud, my team was split into two sub teams -- wire initiators and wire approvers. Obviously both parties (and parts) were required to actually send a wire.
Somewhat routinely, a wire initiator would copy the loan number from one system and paste it into the wrong field in the wiring system. Somewhat less routinely, this field would be pasted into the wire amount field.
All of our loan numbers started with 654 and were ten digits long. If pasted in the wire amount, this loan number would become a $6.54 BILLION dollar wire. Systemic controls prevented our highest approver (me) from approving anything over $10,000,000, so we always had a laugh and would route them back to the initiator for corrections.
No such limit existed for wire initiations since the thought process was that such a large wire couldn't be approved so consequently couldn't be sent.
One evening after the Fed closed we were busy setting up wires to go first thing the next morning. We were setting up wires for mortgage loan closings to different title companies across the nation.
Our wire system was set up in a way that wires queued to send would automatically be sent the next morning as soon as the Fed opened. In a rush to close out our queue and go home for the evening, one of my team members initiated one of our famous $6.54 billion dollar wires. (I thought)
I rejected it and sent it back for correction, had a laugh, and went home for the evening.
That night I came up with a brilliant plan to make our new department VP believe that we had actually sent the large wire. I went in the next morning and told my team the plan. They all agreed it'd be funny, so I delivered the (fake) bad news to our new VP.
She freaked out, and suggested that we call our EVP who was based out of another state with the news. She also suggested that we concurrently attempt to recall the wire (which is only successful if the receiving account agrees to the recall) and look at terminating the team members who made the error.
Once I could see that she was seriously freaking out, I didn't find it funny any longer. I smiled, and told her it was a joke. I tried to cover my tracks by suggesting that we could use that joke as an example on why initiators needed loan limits on what they could initiate.
After buying it hook, line, and sinker, she agreed that she would sponsor such a request with our app developers right away.
You may be wondering at this point how my prank backfired.
On my way back to my department, one of my team members caught me in the hall and in a worried, hushed manner stated "You didn't play that joke yet, did you?" When I let her know that I had just come from our VP's office, she turned very white and asked me to get back to the department right away.
It turned out that in their infinite wisdom, our app developers had implemented a range on the approval limits. This means that unbeknownst to me or my team, even though I was told I couldn't approve wires above $10,000,000, the developer had coded the system in such a way that I couldn't wire any amount between $10mm and $399.99mm, because (in their thinking) trying to wire any amount above that was simply crazy.
Turns out my team exposed that loophole. We actually sent a $6.54 BILLION dollar wire.
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Well, That Escalated
So I was vacationing out in the country with some friends, and me and two buddies were staying in the same room. One night we were just talking and stuff when suddenly one of them decided it would be funny to remove his underwear(underneath his duvet luckily) and throw it in my face. Needless to say, I got mad and threw it out the window.
He then got mad because it turned out he had tricked me, and those were fresh, non-worn underwear. After arguing about it all three of us went out, in nothing but our underwear and shoes, to find underwear.
Here's the thing; The house we were staying in had a fenced area next to it, also owned by the owner of the house. And I had managed to throw the underwear into that area.
So we all made our way under the fence, just in case it was electrified.
And we find the underwear...when we hear a noise behind us. We turn, and there, in the dark, we can just about make out...a friggin bull.
All three of us ended up screaming and running back, jumping over the fence(which was electrified, so we all got shocked). When we were safe we looked back to see the bull now standing where we had stood.
Our other friends woke up because of the screaming, and found us all breathless, almost nude, in the grass, one of us was even crying.
They will never let us forget that.
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The Tipping Point
Back in high school I was working at a Waffle House and we had this regular who was handicapped and kind of a jerk. He had once been a high school principal and suffered a stroke so half of his body did not work. He would do weird things like come in and order breakfast then ask the waitress to hose down his van in the back. But I digress...
One day he came in and ordered scrambled cheese eggs with raisin toast. I made his meal and turned around to the bar to hand it to him. As soon as I set the plates down he grabbed the plate of raisin toast, shoved it in my face and said "remake it."
Remake it? I was like WTF is wrong with that toast? He said it was too done. So, being the little 17 year punk I could be, I intentionally burnt the mess out of the next batch of toast. I'm talking black clouds billowing out of the toaster burnt and the toast was steaming as I set it down on the counter.
As expected, he was mad and demanded a new order of toast.
The joke was over. I took this next order of toast as serious business. I made this one perfect! It came out of the toaster, crisped with a light and golden crust, spread it with the perfect layering of warm butter, cut it laser-line perfectly and lay it on the plate with the Apple Butter aesthetically placed.
This was food magazine toast.
As I was approaching him with the plate I could see in his eyes that he noticed how perfect this toast was and he was happy. He was ready for his toast. At that very instant, an urge struck me. As I set the little plate down, I intentionally angled it and tapped the edge of the plate on the counter so the toast slid off and glided across the counter.
Now this made him hit his boiling point. He slammed his fist on the counter and started screaming at me like a lunatic. He ran out of the restaurant, got in his van and sped the heck out of there. Right after that, while he was on the road, he had a heart attack, careened off the road, went through a fence, hit a tree and died.
I have very mixed feelings about this.
Photo: Unsplash
Hide And Go Seek
Back in high school my friends and I hated our school and were extremely bored so we did a lot of pranks in school. Our best/most messed up one went as follows.
In the storage room of the band room is a gap in the cabinets that extends all the way to the floor. People used to put stuff in there, but one day the school got sick of it and sealed it up. My friends and I got the brilliant idea to sneak in and put something really rancid in there.
So my friend who would do just about anything, starts saving up his fecal matter in one of the big bubble soap containers.
After a school event one night we make sure a store gets stuck open and we sneak in. We get on top of the cabinets with a screwdriver and take the lid off, my friend then proceeds to dump the nastiest smelling container into the hole. Then we seal it back up, and sneak out of there.
It simmers for a weekend in the hot early summer, and we come back to school the next Monday not sure what to expect. The whole school wrecked. Every hallway, every room smelled, and the band room was like a toxic waste dump.
Everyone had to plug their noses for days, and the cleanup staff never found it because they thought no one would put something in that hole because it was sealed up.
It took months for the bandroom to reach a tolerable level of stench, and to this day it still does not smell the same. We look back on it now thinking wtf were we doing, but still get a good laugh out of it. Pretty sick if you think about it. But the reaction was worth it.
Photo: Pexels
Love, Lies, and Deceit
My friend and I from school were both about 14 or 15 and he was staying over at mine for the night. The previous night he had somehow managed to guess the password of some hot girl at our school and take over her msn.
This wasn't so cool, considering it was another acquaintance's little sister, but we thought, no real harm done here. Having done that, the possible mischief was mouth-watering just to think of, and as it turned out, for good reason too.
Pretending to be the girl, we started chatting up a guy and acquaintance in our year over msn (the girl was the year below). At first, he was confused. It was clear he'd already made overtures that had been rejected. It was amazing how much we could get out of him by asking "why do you think that?"
After the initial confusion, he was very receptive if completely awkward at the same time. This was quite obviously hilarious, and I don't think I can underestimate our giddiness. He divulged how he thinks this 'girl' is the hottest in her year, and that she has a good figure. And that they should go for dinner sometime.
Yes, the tone of the conversation was this schizophrenic. I think he was so shocked he had to say everything at once.
Naturally, we wanted to push this as far as possible. So we coaxed pictures of his body out of him. Abs and flexing shots mainly. Now obviously, the pictures themselves weren't really funny, but the context and control we had was hilarious.
So then we asked for a picture of his junk, the obvious next step. We're not gay, to set the record straight, but this was spur of the moment stuff, and every broken boundary brought more hearty laughter.
He refused!
He wanted to see some of the girl’s on a webcam before he did anything like that. Now obviously, this was problematic given that we can't shapeshift. However, my friend, who as an aside could probably write an entertaining novel on his social exploits, had actually got her on webcam previously, totally clothed unfortunately, and was chuffed enough to have sent me evidence of this in the form of a screenshot of her on cam on msn.
So what we did, with very little a laugh -- was get the aforementioned picture on screen, and hold the webcam at it, while it shakes really quite obviously, and the image of the girl stays completely static. He actually bought it. We laughed uproariously.
But now he was unhappy she wasn't moving. It looked like he was getting suspicious and asked her to wink. What do you do??? Well, we said a parent was coming into the room and we had to turn the camera around.We went into Photoshop and crudely filled the eye with fleshy coloured so it looked closed, and made the other one bright white and eye-socket size. He couldn't believe this, could he??
He did, of course. I need not elaborate on our reaction.
But still, no junk pic! He wanted her to stand up. Clearly he was still a bit suspicious. We did the same routine with the parental interruption as last time, except this time, we extended the image size and plopped in a picture of trousers off Google. This looks awful and entirely unbelievable given the perspective, the relative sizes and just everything...
So we gave it a go. We panned the camera up and down the image. We couldn't even keep it properly steady for any length of time because neither of us could hold it together without laughing. His response?
"You have an amazing body".
It was just so utterly unbelievable that we almost started thinking he was having us on. Which would be fair play. But no. Junk pic arrived on the next request. We laughed, heartily, and called it a night. Oh, but one thing. He wanted her number. So we gave him mine.
Over the following few weeks, we texted. This made me feel icky for obvious reasons. His declarations of love, the fact he was always accidentally seeing me (the girl).... it was making me uncomfortable, and I was starting to feel guilty that he was obviously attached. The indifferent responses seemed to make him more desperate.
Given that we all attended the same school, I could use some events to give the impression that it really was her.
Our main aim now was to get him to talk to her, and her to be utterly confused, while we all watched -- we wanted in on the awkwardness. We had thoughts that we might die from the laughter. We were also aware that we maybe shouldn't because of the possibility he might commit it from the humiliation.
Now this was all difficult due to the size of the school. So we basically stalked him, and her, and encouraged him to come over and speak to her while we watched. We took shifts on who we stalked so it didn't seem too conspicuous. We roped in a friend too to help.
When we knew where the girl was, we'd tell him to come over. We go close, but no cigar. He didn't want to come over with all the other friends there. He also moaned about her ignoring him while texting.... which was a good point. Bear in mind, that for the girl, she hardly even knows this guy exists.
Eventually, a date was set up instead. Just him and her. This is where things got interesting. We arranged to meet in a park. Girls generally don't meet up with guys they've never spoken to in parks, but he didn't notice that. We were idiots and we were late, because we were rendezvousing with the third friend again who wanted in, and because we forgot to charge the camera.
We kept telling him to wait there, we'll be there, that she/I wouldn't stand him up (which was particularly cruel because he definitely wasn't going to get stood up), so we could get there to see him.
We did get there. From in between trees and bushes up on a hill, we looked down, and there he was. Up there with the saddest sights I've seen. Absent-mindedly pacing back and forth in the middle of the path decked out in a suit and with a giant bouquet of roses. My friends and I reflected on how cruel this all is, and then went closer to get better pictures.
While getting the better pictures -- successfully, and pretty nerve-wracking -- I was going to text him back saying she couldn't make it, and try and let him down gently. That didn't go to plan as I ran out of credit on my phone, and he had the other two guys' numbers, so the poor guy abruptly didn't have any reason for the no-show after being assured.
He actually phoned, and the phone wasn't on silent, and I swear he heard it, as he kept looking in our direction from then on.
Eventually he left. We followed him for whatever reason (more pictures).
At one point he noticed us and we ran away round the corner. We were pretty sure the game was up, but at least we weren't identified? Probably not, but for some reason, it might have been a good one but I can't actually remember, we looked around to find him again and couldn't.. We gave up and made our way back when BAM, he's waiting round a corner and confronts us.
He starts asking questions very angrily, but very quickly and clearly he starts to become overwhelmed. His eyes go shiny and red with tears and his lip starts quivering as he stands there, before just running away from us. We felt bad.
Several days pass, and we have a football game, which, as luck would have it, involves my friend and the victim. He played very aggressively and out of the ordinary and at times things threatened to get out of hand between him and my friend, but we just kept telling him he doesn't know what's going on.
It was clear he hadn't told anyone else of the situation as they were confused. So he hears us out after the game.
My friends and I had previously decided that it was impossible to fool him any further with this, no matter how gullible he is, and to just come clean. But on the spot, I came up with a solution to absolve us of blame.
I really shouldn't have, but I was aware of the strife between the victim and the girl's brother, who was in our year. Under pressure it just popped into my head. Everything was blamed on the brother. We acted stupid. We didn't even know what was going on apparently.
All we were told by her brother was that we should show up in the park at a certain time if we wanted a laugh, and that we had nothing better to do, so we did.
He bought this hook line and sinker, and thanked us for being so honest with him, and that he should have realized and not been so stupid, given that she's his sister.
A few days later the brother was mysteriously attacked.
I'm now really good pals with the brother and he has no idea about this.
The girl in question still has no idea she played a central/any role in this drama.
I gave her her account back a few months later after getting the pass from my friend.
Photo: Pexels