Practical Jokes

[sasu]

An apple pie with partly melted chocolate bars on top.

Me and my wife put this "kitty litter" in the middle of the dining table and when our son came home we told him this is the new place for the cat toilet from now on. He rolled his eyes and went to his room. When we showed him that it was really just a pie he said he thought we had gone crazy and decided better not to say anything. And he refused to eat the cake, it looked too grizzly to him.

 

[Watchdog]

Practical Joke

True story here.

Place: A Little Country Church Outside of Lancaster, South Carolina
Time: Easter Sunday, early 1930s, maybe '31 or '32

My dad, his older brother Carl, and younger brother Cole always rode to church in Carl's Model T.

On one Easter Sunday, they set off for church, all dressed in their finest suits for church...or as fine a suit as cotton mill workers could afford in the midst of the Great Depression.

Dad told me Carl looked particularly spiffy in his new (second hand) cream colored three piece suit, white shoes, and white fedora.

Seems Carl had his eye on a pretty young Baptist girl named Ruth. He'd been hanging around her so much, she'd finally agreed to go on an Easter Sunday picnic with him after preaching. Dad said Carl would get to trembling like a setter on point at just the thought of it, he was so excited.

So they all went in to preaching, and soon as the service was over, Cole (always a jolly prankster even later in life), slipped out the door while the rest of the family slowly made their way outside...and he went out and disconnected the coil wire on Carl's old Ford.

Now here comes Carl and Ruth, Carl carrying this pretty picnic basket Ruth had put together. Dad and Cole told him to go on with Ruth and they'd get a ride home...patting Carl on the back and all, wishing him a good time with Ruth, you know.

So Carl starts twisting on that Model T's crank, and of course the thing won't start. Now Easter Sundays in South Carolina can get real hot sometime, so it wasn't long before sweat was just a pourin' off Carl, soaking through that pretty suit, and getting some grease on it in the bargain. Carl was so intent on gettin' started, it never crossed his mind to open the hood.

Finally Cole says, "Hey, lemme check out the motor," and looks under the hood and says, "Hey Carl, the coil wire's not even hooked up!" And dad's just almost rolling on the grass laughing, letting the cat out of the bag. Even Ruth was laughing by then.

Dad said Carl chased him and Cole all around that little country church, swattin' at them with his hat and getting even more sweat soaked, dad and Cole just whoopin' with laughter.

Finally even Carl had to laugh at it all, and he and Ruth went on to their picnic.

I think dad was about seventeen then, Carl a few years older, and Cole a few years younger than dad. They're all gone now, of course. I think about them a lot, the older I get. I believe they were better men than I'll ever be.

Carl and Ruth, by the way, ended up being married almost sixty years.

 

[M E Morrison]

I'm going to relate one that happened TO me, rather than one I pulled.

We lived in Florida in 1990, and I had just bought a brand new truck. I left it parked outside one night, and the next morning came out to find it sitting on cinder blocks...the tires and wheels had been stolen. The thieves also hit several other cars in the neighborhood. We called the police, and the insurance company covered the loss. I didn't expect to hear anything further about it, frankly.

About six months later, I was in my office and got a call from someone claiming to be the thief who stole the tires and wheels from my truck. He said he had hurt his back while on my property, and wanted to see if my homeowners or medical insurance would cover his injury. He also wanted to see if he could get some of the insurance money that paid to replace my tires and wheels, since he didn't get as much for them as he had planned. Well, the conversation went from incredulous to obscene on my part, as you can well imagine. Finally, the caller revealed himself to be a DJ from a local radio station.

This radio station had a morning program (which in my defense, I never listened to) which featured this DJ and crew calling individuals up and seeing if they could get them to react. It turns out that my dear, darling wife had called them and put them up to calling me...and, my employees knew that the DJ was going to be calling me. When the call came in, my secretary told my employees, and they were all standing outside my office laughing their heads off.

The radio station aired my "bag" (which is what they called it when they bagged some fool) which had been enhanced with funny sounds, a laugh track, and the DJ's voice was altered electronically to sound like a stereotypical minority (this was in 1990, and no way would this happen today.) By the end of the call, all that could be heard of me was a series of bleeps, since what I was saying couldn't be aired.

The radio station regularly played my bag for years. I was transferred back to Texas in 1996, and for several years after that my former employees would call me and tell me they had heard it on the annual "best of the bags" program. My boss got a copy, and thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard...so much so that while I worked for him, he'd play it at our staff meetings.

I tried to get even with my wife. While we still lived in Florida, we were eating at a restaurant and the diner sitting at a table next to ours was getting sick. He got up to go to the bathroom, and didn't quite make it...he threw up all over my wife. I called the radio station, and they called her pretending to be the owner of the restaurant wanting her to pay for cleaning the carpet. She didn't fall for it. I guess she really is smarter than me!

The only revenge I can think of is staying married to her...that'll teach her!

I don't know - if it hasn't worked by now......

 

[M E Morrison]

An apple pie with partly melted chocolate bars on top.

Me and my wife put this "kitty litter" in the middle of the dining table and when our son came home we told him this is the new place for the cat toilet from now on. He rolled his eyes and went to his room. When we showed him that it was really just a pie he said he thought we had gone crazy and decided better not to say anything. And he refused to eat the cake, it looked to grizzly too him.

Kids today are such wimps...

 

[TX-Dennis]

A few years back a pharmacist I worked with had a new BMW SUV. One of the bigger ones. He always took two parking spots. One day near the end of his shift I parked about an inch from his drivers side door and had another buddy park an inch from his passenger door. Of course several of us just "happened" to be outside on break when he left. We watched him walk to the drivers side. Finding it impassible, he then walked to the passenger side. He looked a bit flummoxed for a few seconds. Then he popped the hatch and crawled over the seats. He made sure to honk and wave at us as he drove away.

 

[Lt JL]

I was sort of famous as joker until I made Lt., and had to behave myself. One of my favorites was the potato up the tailpipe. Another was the fish in the heater box. We had air force style hats then, which nobody wore, so switching them around before a parade or memorial always caused some confusion. Especially for the black women officers, who tended to hsve big hat sizes, and the oriental guy officers who were pinheads.

 

[Skeet 028]

Another friend a bit older college professor...I mean he even looked a bit weird. Kept his beer in a box on the porch(colder weater y'all). Wife called up one day after they had been gone on a short trip. Asked my wide if I had taken her husbands beer...as a practical joke. Said no of course. About a month later picked up the phone...wife looked at me quizically and I just shushed her. Dialed the fellow and when he answered (on speaker phone) I asked if this was donald Con nell. In his most professorial voice he said yes this is Mr Connell..pronounced correctly of course..may I ask who is calling.. and I said...well I is the one that took your beer and I wants to know when you gonna put some more out dere. Well he fired right up with Why you somnab****..I'll put some more...then realizing he had been had.... once again...he said Awwww ****!!! Got me again and hung up...he called me back ...later that day. My wife was rolling and his wife called up mine laughing her butt off. She had heard the whole thing . Those wimmin had a ball telling all the other gals at the hospital how I had bagged him up. He even got calls from some of the other nurses over the next few weeks wanting some beer too. He finally did forgive me after a year or so.... Maybe..luckily he is still in Md while I am out here in Wyoming.

 

[model70hunter]

I never was one to do this kind of stuff, but did participate in hard to accomplish projects.

Our towns Coroner and funeral home fella had a son who was drifty, he tired sports and failed but to his credit he kept at it each year and ended up being the place kicker our Sr. Year.

His Daddy bought him a used VW Bug the summer before our Sr year. He was slow to get undressed, shower and get out the door after the late summer drills. Some guys pushed his Bug across the baseball field and hid it behind the sorage bld.

We watched him look for it, he looked and looked, finally found it and drove it across the baseball field, a young coach in on it cehewed him our for driving there.

Some guys just cant take a joke, he whined, complained and became a nuisance. Time to do something. A smart guy would have rolled the windows up and locked it, but smart he wasn't.

There was a narrow walkway below ground level between the shop class and the parking lot. About 6' wide.

One day somone spied some 10' 2x10's stacked next to a project close by. The design engineer said, grab 2, we'll line them up with the Bug's wheels and push it on the shop class room roof. Worked like a champ. He looked everywhere as we talked and pretended to not be watching. He eventually found it, walked the plank and drove it over the planks to the lot. He cut the whining and we left him alone. We told him it was pretty gutsy to drive it off the school roof.

In college we had a compulsive whiner, cry baby in our dorm. He had a 64ish Ford Falcon with a small 260 ci V8. He would complain if anyone parked close to him, guys talked to loud after 9 PM were jumped verbally until we had enough. Work being performed close to any young guys gives ideas of mischief for sure.

A bunch of stacked concrete blocks, a car jack out of someones trunk, guys working harder on this than they ever did on homework soon had the Falcon blocked up, the tires were about 1/2" off the ground, hot whiner had a date, we waited. Some one leaned against a Falcon fender and smoked, he yelled, jumped into his car, put it in first and let out the clutch. WE could not contain ourselves.

He got out, nothing he could do as his mommy was not there to help him. You guys did this, someone yelled things like griping at 9 PM needs to stop, whining needs to stop. And he shut up for the rest of the year. Said he was transferring to a school in Ca. Don't know how he got it off the blocks. We went and had a a beer.

 

[blues7]

When I was in high school I volunteered in a hospital for a while. I got to see and do a lot of things that most young folks and even adults never get to see but that's another story for another time.

Anyway, I'd drive the nurses and staff nuts from time to time with my antics. I'd put a skeleton in a wheel chair and roll it down the hall, call to one of the nurses or doctors and say that "the guy just went to pieces!".

Some enjoyed the pranks, some did not.

Well, one time I had to wheel a recently deceased man down to the morgue and on the elevator, which had public as well as staff on it, I moved the sheet and acted like the dearly departed had just moved. Well, you can imagine the somewhat startled reaction of the folks comprising the non-medical riders on that elevator.

Anyway, I brought the deceased down to the morgue and pulled a similar maneuver on the pathologist who got a bit startled and didn't appreciate being screwed with by a wise-*** kid but didn't let on.

After I helped him put the deceased on a table he mentioned he needed to go pick up a piece of equipment and would be right back to start the autopsy.

As he left he closed and locked the door and shut the lights. (The lights and locks were all on the outside of the room as none of its occupants would be turning them on, off or leaving.)

Well, I didn't know whether to $#it or go blind! I was so freaked out that every time one of the refrigerators hummed I thought one of the "walking dead" was coming for me. I stood there in the darkness with a scalpel in my hand for what felt like hours but was merely minutes.

Needless to say I toned down my act after that and limited my antics to organizing wheelchair races with young patients (much to the dismay of the nurses) or occasionally walking the skeleton down the corridor connected to an IV.

 

[Bekeart]

Wish I could claim it. NOT mine but GREAT.

Wish I could claim it. NOT mine but GREAT.
Friend at college (late 60s) told me about his prank.
Did not detail exactly why/how he picked the victim.

He used a pencil and tablet paper.
Wrote letters to several Radio Preachers telling how he listed and appreciated their great efforts.
He included a $1 bill and mentioned that when his situation improved he could send more.
Signed the VICTIMS name and address.

We both wondered how long the victim would keep getting letters from those Radio Preachers requesting donations.

Bekeart

 

[old tanker]

It wasn't so much a practical joke, but the Training NCO had mounted a toilet seat on the wall. On the lid was artfully inscribed, "A**hole of the Week."

Just about every visitor, overcome by curiosity, would lift the lid, and be "startled" by the visage peering from the mirror.

The Brigade Commander did not find it funny.

 

[M E Morrison]

Wish I could claim it. NOT mine but GREAT.
Friend at college (late 60s) told me about his prank.
Did not detail exactly why/how he picked the victim.

He used a pencil and tablet paper.
Wrote letters to several Radio Preachers telling how he listed and appreciated their great efforts.
He included a $1 bill and mentioned that when his situation improved he could send more.
Signed the VICTIMS name and address.

We both wondered how long the victim would keep getting letters from those Radio Preachers requesting donations.

Bekeart

I did something like that once, but it was to the local Jehovah Witness, and it was a $20. Got an entire summer of entertainment watching the victim get constant visitors. Yeah, I know I'm evil - been told that pretty much every time I told this story.

 

[S&W Fan]

In 1972 my older brother and his best friend bought new VW Beetles. My brother liked his but his friend couldn't shut up about how great it was on gas, fun to drive, cheap, etc.

So my brother stole an idea from someone else and we started siphoning the gas out of his buddies car. This went on for a month and he was going nuts trying to figure out what was wrong. At the end of the month we started adding gas to it (it helped he didn't lock it so we could open the filler door).

Well, being the younger one I just couldn't stop laughing the day he was talking about why his car wasn't using any gas. One of my favorites.

 

[M E Morrison]

In 1972 my older brother and his best friend bought new VW Beetles. My brother liked his but his friend couldn't shut up about how great it was on gas, fun to drive, cheap, etc.

So my brother stole an idea from someone else and we started siphoning the gas out of his buddies car. This went on for a month and he was going nuts trying to figure out what was wrong. At the end of the month we started adding gas to it (it helped he didn't lock it so we could open the filler door).

Well, being the younger one I just couldn't stop laughing the day he was talking about why his car wasn't using any gas. One of my favorites.

I saw that in a movie once, with Walter Matthau as the prankster. He started off putting in an gallon a night & let the neighbor brag, then they took out a gallon a night. Final scene was the neighbor screaming at the service manager about his sudden decrease in mileage.