Practical jokes!

[Spiffy McMoron]

At work (I work at a car dealership), we have two shops: one for customer vehicles (the big shop) and a smaller shop (the chicken coop) for fixing up used cars that come in on trade.

If we have the time and people, we (the parts department) will take stuff over to the chicken coop, just because we're nice and/or want to get outside for a bit. However, most of the time the mechanic has to walk or drive over to pick up stuff. (The two buildings are about 100 meters apart--not much at all.) This happened on Saturday, when the weather was crappy and we were busy.

A used car mechanic asked for some parts for a car he was working on. Well, we didn't have them, we had to order them. (It was a car that was a different brand than the ones we sell.) Well, he complained about that. He complained about how long it would take, the fact that we had to get some expensive stuff, and that we didn't have time to deliver.

Finally, we got all of his stuff together, and we got it delivered over to the chicken coop. The delivery driver comes back from dropping these parts off, and said that J, the mechanic, wanted us (me and my co-worker) to have this: a pink plastic comb that you'd get from a Barbie doll or a My Little Pony.

This, sir, meant war.

So me and my co-worker, S, gathered up our change, and we asked the driver to stop by a drugstore and pick up a bottle of baby shampoo, the kind that claims "No more tears!" The driver goes out, buys the shampoo, and we wait for J to show up.

Sure enough, J shows up within five minutes of S and I getting the shampoo. We get what J wants, we thank him for the comb, and we gave him the shampoo.

That was the ONLY time we've ever seen him speechless!

[bean]

Me being a serious smartass (and occasionally, a real asshole), I would have picked up some baby food, teething biscuits, a rubber ducky, in addition to the shampoo. Maybe some tampons too.

(we sell all of them in my store, the most expensive item would be the rubber duck at $6.49.. cheapest would be the "My first <item>" baby food intended for toddlers under 6 months, at 69 cents)

[Diablo]

I was stationed in Charleston South Carolina and a former roommate of mine owned me a couple hundred dollars. It was right after Christmas when I warned him that he needed to pay me back or I would get revenge. He ignored me so I put in add in the local paper which simply said...
WILL BUY USED CHRISTMAS TREES
$25 OR BEST OFFER
followed of course with by the address of my former roommate's new rental house. This being South Carolina, people just didn't show up with a tree, they show up with truckloads of old trees. And when they learned they weren't getting paid for their trees, they just dropped them in the front yard. I ran the add for a couple of weeks and every time I drove past his house, I would nearly die of laughter as the pile of trees grew higher and higher. Finally, his landlord got a citation for the fire department because of all the trees piling up in the front yard, so he got evicted.
Yeah, I was an asshole back then...

[smileyeagle1021]

My favorite practical joke was one I pulled on my coworkers at National Car rental. We had a tube that we used to send keys up to the desk when we parked the cars. One night a customer left a bag of jelly bellys in the car. I loaded up 3 tubes (they are opeque, so you can't see what's in them). The first and last tube I put in keys like normal, the middle tube though I filled with jelly bellys (I knew that the person at the front desk always started with either the first or last tube). It worked exactly as I had planned. They opened the first tube dumped out all the keys on the desk, put the keys on the proper hooks, opened the second tube, without even looking dumped it on the counter and jelly bellys went everywhere. Fortunately no one was ever able to top that.

[Jester]

I ran the add for a couple of weeks and every time I drove past his house, I would nearly die of laughter as the pile of trees grew higher and higher. Finally, his landlord got a citation for the fire department because of all the trees piling up in the front yard, so he got evicted.
Yeah, I was an asshole back then...

No sir. A BRILLIANT asshole. Well done. Well done indeed.

Ah, practical jokes. Where to start? Ok, might as well do the most recent ones.

This last April Fool's Day, I nailed two of my friends, Frank and D-Rod, separately. The one with D-Rod is far easier to explain here, and illustrates how sometimes the best jokes are the simplest ones.

I had just started dating RW, and was sitting at the Waterfront Bar eating dinner and drinking a beer, and D-Rod called me. I should say that she is both sweet and, well, gullible. Far too trusting of an asshole like ME.

D-ROD: "What you doing?"
JESTER: "Nothing. Just sitting here eating and drinking. Why don't you come down."
D-ROD: "Nah, don't feel like doing much."

At this point the proverbial light bulb went off in my head, and I decided to mess with D-Rod.

JESTER: "No, seriously, come down here. I want you to meet my new girlfriend." I was sitting with four other guys, drinking beer. I had no "new girlfriend."

D-ROD: "Your WHAT?!?!!?"
JESTER: "My new girlfriend. She's a sweetheart. You'd love her."
D-ROD: "But....but....but.....what about RW?!?!?!"
JESTER: "Screw RW. She's a pain in my ass." She wasn't.
D-ROD: "Jester, what happened?!?!?"
JESTER: "Just get down here and I'll tell you all about it."

And I hung up. And waited for the fan to hit the....well, you know.

As she told me later, D-Rod hurriedly got dressed, and set off out of for the Waterfront Bar at a quick pace. As she was walking past another bar, she overheard someone say something about "April Fool's Day."

And she stopped dead in her tracks.

"That motherfucker!!!"

She admitted when she got to the Waterfront Bar that I had gotten her good.

[worddork]

I onced worked at a day-care center, and had a co-worker who left her car keys everywhere and would forget where she left them. Now there were some days when the school we worked for would have minium days which meant that we would be working from 12:30 pm to about 6:30 pm. So one minium day, co-worker leaves her car keys at the sign-in/sign-out desk where I happen to be stationed. It's now 4:00 and I'm about to hurt who ever wrote Disney's Toy Story, cause the kids are now watching it for the hundredth time that year, when I see the keys, right next to the masking tape one of the kids used for a class project Under the desk I dive with my two finds. And after some headsmacking on underside of desk and cutting of the tape, I have hidden the keys but good. 5:30 comes around, there aren't that many kids so I was sent home early. After a few miles of driving, far enough not to get hurt, I call the center's phone and ask co-worker if she knows where her keys are. She looks, freaks out, and then hears me my fool head off. She yells "What have you done", and choke out "Look under the desk". She pulls them off and tries to make me think she can't find them, but I heard a kid in the background call out "Here they are." so I know she's trying to get me back, badly at that. After that day she never let her keys out of her sight again. To this day I still when I think about it.

[blas]

My one trainee from some of my threads, the know-it-all, he just CANNOT stay at his station. He has to run to the medicine dispenser or drinking fountain or trot around the room to "stretch his legs" every 5 minutes. He has to talk to EVERYONE and spout of all of his "knowledge".

I'm going to tape the mat by his machine so he sticks to it.

He also farts a lot. He won't admit he has a problem and he won't even say sorry or even do it in the bathroom despite him leaving every 5 minutes to pee. He has to always fart around us. I'm going to put a whopee cushion on his chair. He won't even notice.

He's so dense and dumb he won't notice the tape on the mat, either. He's really stupid. No common sense whatsoever. He has already gotten his hand stuck in the machine and then proceeded to try and stick his HEAD inside of it.

[Imogene]

This last April Fool's Day, I nailed two of my friends, Frank and D-Rod, separately.

Okay, come on, what happened with Frank?

[Ree]

My one trainee from some of my threads, the know-it-all, he just CANNOT stay at his station. He has to run to the medicine dispenser or drinking fountain or trot around the room to "stretch his legs" every 5 minutes. He has to talk to EVERYONE and spout of all of his "knowledge".

So, where does the practical joke come in.

[crazylegs]

All I've managed to do is use an entire roll of pallet wrap on a managers car, then hid all the knives.....

[ThePhoneGoddess]

I, like Diablo, have a penchant for vengeful practical jokes.

I had a roommate who was so awful in college I had to call the cops to have him thrown out. He claimed we were growing drugs in the house (WE WERN'T!), so the cops spent hours searching this huge college house, wasting everyone's time. He later beat up his girlfriend, who was a friend of mine. Oh yeah, it was payback time.

I found out wherre he was staying. I then collected a change of address form from the post office, filled it out, and mailed it in. I had all his mail forwarded to Guam. Including his paychecks.

I got on a computer at the library and signed him up, including his cell number, for every branch of the military we have. (Hey, the military might have done that idiot some good!)

I had a friend who had access to his new home---and was mad at him over the GF beating incident---unscrew the showerhead in the house and put an entire roll of lifesavers up there. That's an evil prank, right there. The more they shower, the stickier they get.

He was quite miserable for several weeks, before he finally got the hint and left town. I'm a sweetie but you don't wanna cross me.

[blas]

Ree, the practical joke is going to be taping his floor mat so that he sticks to it.

[Kara]

We had a great one at Circuit City one time. I was in Home Office, and a coworker, T, was selling an open-box laptop. The customer applied for a store card, he did the credit ap, and then had the customer go look around the store while he waited for the results to come back. T went back to the office to wait for the fax to come in, and left the laptop on the counter, with no security attached. It was a slow day and the only ones in the department were myself and A.

A: Hey, T left the laptop just sitting there. Go make sure no one runs off with it.
ME, suddenly inspired: Yeah, that would be horrible. S (dept manager) would be PISSED if it just walked off.

We took the laptop, left the tools where they were, and hid it in the cabinet of one of the registers. Then a customer came in and I went to go do my sales thing, while A answered the phone. A few minutes later, T came back with a big smile on his face. His customer was approved and he was about to close the sale.

T: Hey, what the....?

I just finished up with my customer and walked (seemingly without purpose) toward the laptop area.

T: Kara! What happened to the open box Sony that was sitting here?
ME (innocent): I thought you sold it.
T: Well, I was going to. Where is it?
ME: I dunno. I was helping that guy out,so I wasn't watching it. Don't tell me you took it out of the security lockbox and just left it there?
T: This isn't funny.
ME: No shit. S is going to kill you.
T: Oh man....
ME: Did you put it somewhere before you left?
T: Uh... maybe I did.

We walked over to A, who was just finishing up the phone call.

T: Where's the laptop?
A: Which one?
T: The open-box Sony.
A: You sold it, dumbass.
T: Okay, this is for real. If either of you knows anything about this...
ME: Seriously, I thought you sold it already. And I was over there with a customer.
A: I've been on the phone.
T: Oh damn! No, no, no! This is... DAMN!

He went to go get our computers manager. While he was gone, A got the laptop and set it back on the shelf exactly where we found it. We went to the edge of the department to watch the results.

T (walking back with S): I don't know what happened. All I know is I left it right over there.
S: Where?
T: Right-

He looked at the laptop that was sitting there. He looked up and saw A and me.

T: You two are going to Hell, you know that?

The dept manager thanked us for teaching him a lesson about leaving stuff unlocked and unsupervised

[Ghengis51]

pranks I've seen

My part-time job is pretty easygoing so we've seen our share of good jokes there.

- one guy took the managers keys and unhooked her car battery. He fixed it after she spent about 5 min trying to figure out what was wrong with her car.

- a group of people saran wrapped a managers desk. They even had the chair covered up, it was great.

- our center has a pool, every once in a while there's an accident in the pump room and the manager (the only ones who deal with the chemicals) gets sprayed with chlorine. It's easy to see when this happens since their shirt becomes polka dot. Our one manager had one of his shirts that looked like this in his office to remind himself to be careful, after he retired it ended up in the pumproom hanging from the top. We have NO idea how it got up there, our pumproom is about 50 feet high and you normally need a hydraulic lift to get up there. The shirts still there after 5 years.

I love pranks but I'm not very creative with them, but I do like picking on my friends. When I worked at Media Play our one cashier was a sweetheart but a little on the gullible side. She came to my section doing returns from the front desk.

"Here you go Brian." handing me a kids computer keyboard.
"oh that's ours"
"huh what do you mean"
"They keep those over in the children's section in books"
"oh ok, thanks"
five minutes later, she comes up and hands me the keyboard again, scowling at me "you suck"
I give her my biggest smile "love you too"

[Jester]

The dept manager thanked us for teaching him a lesson about leaving stuff unlocked and unsupervised...

I once got taught a similar lesson, but turned the practical joke back upon the prankster.

See, as a server, I used to keep my bank (my money that I collect from guests for their bill when they pay cash and which I use to make change) in my server book. One day, I made the mistake of leaving said server book on one of the server stations, and one of my coworkers (we'll call her Heather, since I can't remember her name this many years down the line) decided to have some fun with me and move it into the back.

When I realized my book was not on me, and then that it was not where I thought I had left it, I started to freak out. Heather saw me searching for the book, freaking out, and confessed her prank, telling me (but not showing me) where the book was. I went into the back and found the book, but being the vindictive bastard that I am, decided to have some fun with Heather.

I secured my server book in my backpack and returned to the front of the house and found Heather, telling her that her joke was no longer funny, where was my book? She told me that it was exactly where she had said it was, and went to show me...and of course it wasn't there. I start "freaking out," going on and on about how the server book has my cash and credit slips, and how I am so screwed, and damn it, Heather, where is the book, really?

Once I got tears, I decided to end the joke, and let Heather in on the truth. She about killed me. But I told her that day, "this should teach you not to fuck with Jester." She never did again. Of course, to her credit, that was the last day I ever kept my bank in my server book!

Okay, come on, what happened with Frank?

I am pretty sure I posted this story on CS.com back when it happened, but I'll try to give you the short version.

Frank is a magician who has a magic bar. I often fill in for him when he is out of town (I am doing so this week, actually), so I know where he keeps everything. Well, the night before April Fool's Day, his "girl friend" at the time (they weren't official or anything) and I decided it would be great fun to "kidnap" some of his magic props. So, after she left the bar to drive him home, I went about my business. To wit: I stole his tip jar, his wooden duck (a prop for a great trick) and his magic board. The "magic board" is itself not magic, but is a wooden board with a poker table/pool table type felt surface that is ideal for doing card tricks on. Since I am well known at the bar that hosts the magic bar, the bartenders on duty didn't question me.....that, and they were amused by the idea of fucking with Frank. And very few other people were in the bar at the time, so no one really bothered me.

And so I hid the tip jar (with a couple of other small props in it), the magic board, adn the duck in various places around the bar. I hid them in place where the average person wouldn't see them, but yet all of them were visible if you looked in the right place. This way no one would walk off with them, but they would still be missing, and Frank could find them without too much effort. Or so I thought. To add to it, I left a "ransom note," detailing various BS crimes, that the props had been "liberated, "Viva la revolucion!," and signed it as being from "Los Bufones de Primero de Abril"--or "The Jesters of April First."

The next day, I made it a point to be at the bar when Frank came in, and eventually, he went to set up the magic bar....and realized his stuff was gone. Dopey him, he didn't see the "ransom note" left in a place where he would look for his props, but no one else would have seen it. So, he comes up to me, and asks me for help, as he thinks the bartenders were playing a trick on him. Ever the helpful friend, I "helped" Frank look for his stuff, and "found" the ransom note for him.

Frank does not know Spanish. At all. He read the signature as "the buffoons of April First." I had to "correct" him and tell him that "bufones" meant "fools or jesters." Even after hearing the word "jesters" he still didn't put the whole thing together. Frank is a brilliant man, but sometimes, I wonder!

At one point, one of our local cops came in, and Frank started to talk to him, telling me that he was certain that the "culprit" would fess up seeing this, as they would not want to get in trouble. Frank, of course, had no idea that I was the culprit. When Frank wandered off for a bit, I let the cop in on the secret, and he thought it was hilarious.

Anyway, he found one of the three hiding spots, I "helped" him find a second, and then got talking to a friend, so he was on his own. Eventually I helped him "find" the last one, as he had people waiting to see him do magic. He was still convinced that the bartenders were the perpetrators, though, as they were laughing at him, having been witnesses to the actual crime. I finally had to clue him in. He laughed, and admitted he had been totally had. He does, after all, have a good sense of humor.