A friend who lived in Durham sent a postcard to his girlfriend in
Milwaukee that said "Here is a check for the twenty dollars I owe
you." and had a blank spot and a piece of tape on it.

In my younger days, while employed at a warehouse, I was the butt of
the usual practical jokes directed at newcomers. (Fetch me a
light-bulb repair kit, son, etc.) As days passed, I noticed that one
of my antagonists was actually afraid of his terminal. This was at
the time when the press was full of accounts of the dangers of X-rays
from color TV's, and this guy was deathly afraid of the noise made by
the high-voltage section of the CRT as it warmed up. Each morning he
sat in his swivel chair, coffee in his left hand, and with the chair
as far as possible away from the terminal, used his right hand to
quickly flick the ON switch, and then jerked it away from THE CERTAIN
DEATH THAT AWAITED. After the racket settled down, he would wheel up
to the terminal and commence operations.

This situation was too good for yours truly to pass up. I went
upstairs and pulled out a stock item, a stadium buzzer, used by high
schools on the football fields to announce the end of a quarter. I
came in early the next morning and installed it in one of his file
boxes, near the terminal. I ran the wires out to the next office via
a pass-thru, and alerted all of the staff (but him) of what was about
to transpire.

He entered the room, coffee in hand, and sat in his chair. All others
were heads-down in work. He adjusted his chair to the proper
distance, reached way out for the switch, and as soon as he pulled, I
plugged in the cord. As the buzzer sounded, he assumed the facial
expressions of one who has seen death reaching it's skeltal fingers
to snatch him from the land of the living. Coffee flew to the
ceiling, and for a few brief seconds before hitting the opposite
wall, a new world land speed record for backward swivel-chair
operation was established!

Get a piece of plastic as long as the victims bed and a little over
twice as wide. Remove his mattress from his bed frame and line the
frame with the plastic. Tape the plastic to the bed if necessary.
Fill with water (a hose connected to the tub is helpful). Fold the
rest of the plastic over the water, and make the bed. (Done to my
roommate by mutual friend.)

I start to laugh when ever I think about this one... A friend who
works at a company I will all Inhel for lack of a better name, loves
to tell this story about "Ralph" (names changed to protect the
guilty).

Being in the electronics industry, TAK-PAK is very common (for you
S/W types, tak-pak is thick super glue that comes with a bottle of
'accelerator' that makes it stick VERY fast). It was decided to wait
until Ralph was far enough away that it would be a long run to phone,
but he would make it if he was quick. The 'handle' was then
tak-pak'ed to the little white buttons on top of the phone. The call
was placed. Ralph goes running down the hall full steam ahead, leaps
for the phone, and snatched it off the desk! The hole thing. Now, he
has to try to answer the thing only he can't. And if he sets it down
it hangs up!

An OSU Architecture prof (I'll call him Dr. Jones) had a habit of
telling his students to "Go take a flying leap" when they gave dumb
answers. One student decided to take the prof to task; the class was
taught in a second floor room so the student practiced jumping out
the window (with the help of an assistant who would catch his arms as
he jumped). The two got this down to an art, and one day provoked the
"flying leap" comment from Dr. Jones. The student said, "Okay, if you
say so," turned around, and leapt out the window. His partner (who
was supposed to grab him but say, "oh God, I missed him !") *did*
miss, and the jumper fell and broke his ankle.

No, this is not a cut on stupid practical jokes. The humor follows:

As a result of this episode, the department chairman had to file an
accident report. One line of the form requires the DC to outline
"What actions will be taken to prevent future recurrences of this
accident ?"

The Department Chief answered, "In the future, all of Dr. Jones's
courses will be taught in the basement."

Carefully pick up sleeping target's bed and set it on four coke
bottles. When target rolls over or makes any significant move bed
will crash 6 inches to the floor and there will be bottles rolling
all over the place but not a soul in sight.

This was done to me when I was in college and living in a fraternity
house; Take someone's door and hide it for a while. You would really
be surprised how often you want to close the dang thing and it's not
there to do it!

Back in my graduate days, I used to bring my lunch to school which
consisted of a sandwich and usually a hard boiled egg. I kept a small
jar of salt in my desk for the eggs. One day I dipped my egg in the
salt only to discover it was sugar. It was easy to spot the
prankster(s); everyone in the room was snickering!

Preface: The person that this is played on must be someone who
really deserves it because it takes several people to pull off. He
must also live on the first floor of his dorm. It must also occur in
the winter in a suitably cold and barren area like Dartmouth.

PHASE 1:

We did this trick to someone we found very difficult to live with.
When the victim was away from his room we began to pile up a large
amount of snow outside of his window. The conditions were perfect.
His window was divided into two sections. One didn't open, the other
(in theory) swung outward like a door. The snow was wet and packed
heavily and easily. (On colder days a hose may be used to harden the
snow.) We built a huge pile of snow which reached six or eight feet
back from the part of his window that swung. We then, as a
demoralizing factor, put a cosmetic layer of snow which completely
covered the section which didn't open.

When we had finished the outside work we went into his room and
closed his shade and curtain so that he would not notice what we had
done until it was too late.

PHASE 2:

We then waited for him to come home. Luckily his room was on a side
of the dorm away from the entrance so that our work wasn't visible
from the approach. He arrived and entered his room. We listened
outside his door until we heard his shade go up and a sudden "What
the F--K?" as only pure, white snow was visible through the window.
At this point we wedged a paperback book between his door and the
frame. (Similar to using pennies, but more effective.)

We then sat back and listened as he started towards the door.
"Allright, who put all the snow outside my...what the F--K? OPEN THIS
DOOR!"

The show got more exciting as he, thinking that he could still just
go out the window, walked over, opened his curtain, tried to open the
window, and became aware of the magnitude of the problem facing him.
He had no phone, and so could not call the campus police to come help
him. His neighbors would not heed his cries, because most of them had
assisted us with the trick.

We eventually released him, but only after he had come to the
realization that he needed to be more considerate of those living
around him, or else face living out the rest of a prematurely
shortened life in a small, snow covered dorm room.


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