Pranks
Monday, April 16th, 2007
This week’s question:
April fools! What’s the most successful prank you ever played?
Next week’s question:
Congrats! You survived another April 15th. Tell us about a time when you ‘forgot’ to declare something—to the IRS or anyone else…
In the summer of 1985 the New York lottery had grown to about $40M, a record at the time. On the afternoon of the drawing my boss sent me out to buy 20 tickets. My instructions were to buy the tickets, drop them off at the office, go home and phone in the winning numbers as they were pulled on tv. I phoned the office and recited numbers I’d copied from one of his tickets back to a co-worker.When my boss found out that he had “won,” his reaction, as told to me by one of my colleagues was as follows: He paled, then said, softly, “I won.” His wife, who also worked there said, “What did we win?” He said, “We won nothing. I won the lottery. We’re through.” They divorced a couple of years later.
One day when I was in sixth grade at the H.F. Epstein Hebrew Academy in St. Louis, my classmates and I knew two things that our teacher, a recently-immigrated-to-the-U.S. rabbi from Morocco, did not know: 1) We knew there would be an air raid siren test at 10:00AM one morning; and 2) We knew that the principal of our school would be visiting the class at the same time—because we told him he needed to be there. And so, at 9:45, we explained to our unsuspecting teacher that when the air raid siren went off we were all required by law to duck under our desks and stay there for one full minute. He believed us, and when the siren went off he dutifully crawled under the desk. We stayed seated, of course, and when our principal walked in and asked the whereabouts of “Rabbi X,” we all pointed under the desk. True story. Uncertain is whether we all end up in hell for perpetrating this ruse. I feel bad about it to this day.
In high school, I had a mutual crush on my science teacher. I took chemistry & physics the same year so we got to spend some extended quality time together. Even in my teenage naiveté, I knew things were edging towards the inappropriate. He started giving me little gifts– a record album, a ride home in his awesome sports car. So for Valentine’s Day, I gave him a big red heart-shaped box, like candy comes in, only I filled it with dog kibble. His face lit up when I gave him the box, then when he opened it he looked positively heartbroken. He made my life hell for the whole rest of the year.
I once worked in an office building with two floors with identical floor plans. As it happened, one of the summer interns sat directly above a temporarily vacant office. Thanks to the magic of digital cameras and a long weekend, it was a simple matter to recreate her office, down to the last pencil and post-it, one floor below its original location. When she returned it took her a full hour to decide that she hadn’t gone crazy and that she really worked on 17.
College was a ragtime place where the boredom was inescapable. Sure we had all those books and homework, but nothing brought us more joy than finding a weakness in a fellow roommate and exploiting it. The ultimate prank is one that keeps on giving for years to come. Case in point: being a 21-year-old virgin should be a red badge of honor. You’ve done a great job at nurturing your flower. That is, until your roommates decide to rummage through all of your belongings…leaving behind condoms and love notes to the boy you like. Two years later she was still finding notes and condoms in her shoe box. And her flower was still in check.
My high school boyfriend told me to let him know what color my junior prom dress would be so that he could procure matching bowtie and cummerbund. I called on April 1st [1985].
Me: It’s chartreuse.
Glenn: What’s –
Me: Kind of a fluorescent yellow-green? But that’s just the dress.
Glenn: Okay.
Me: The boa is fuchsia.
Glenn: Okaaay.
Me: So are the roller skates.
Glenn: Skates?
Me: So actually, you should match to the accessories. Fuchsia.
Glenn: (Pause.) Um. Are you bringing shoes?
I called back to say April Fools before he rented a fuchsia tie. Or skates. He did not break up with me until senior prom.