I can't resist a few: 1. Once you have stolen a dormmate's room keys, the room is yours to plunder. As a variation, steal the dorm keys but reverse the lock (so the keyhole faces INTO the room); we had a mechanical engineer who got this down to about 20 seconds. Then loudly announce to the victim you own the keys, but "let" them win the race back to their room. PRESTO! Locked inside their own room (with no keys). If you've fixed the phone to continually ring, they get very pliable after about 10 minutes. 2. We connected our secretary's electric typewriter to a variac (can vary the line voltage). At about 40-50 volts (out of the 110) the little ball makes three or four jerky attempts before finally striking a faint imprint. Fairly pathetic looking, actually. 3. Reverse the horizontal yoke leads on terminals (so the text comes out backwards from right to left). This works best on a software team who thinks they have just released the firmware for screen drivers. Besides, hardware people figure it out too quickly. 4. Hand lotion inside of an air hose on the final assembly line is effective, but very vindictive. Use with caution (now, I'm not saying I ever did this, but I "saw" it done once :-) And the standard saran wrap across women's toilets, Karo syrup, flour in the shower, water-filled surgical tubing jammed in a drawer....ah, for the good old days!! Send this joke to a friend 1 One night when you have a few friends around, take turns calling the same phone number, a really obnoxious acquaintance that won't recognize your voices is always a good choice. When the person answers, try to leave a message for John Smith (or any name that sounds real). Insist that you have the right number and even read their number to them. Have a bit of fun here, and stretch this on as long as possible. Repeat several times, once or twice an hour. Let everybody have a turn at calling. Just as the party is breaking up, call one last time. Tell the poor soul answering the phone that you are John Smith, and ask "Are there any messages for me?" This is sure to get a groan. Send this joke to a friend 2 Seven friends once pulled this at my college cafeteria. One put a hot water bottle filled with pea soup down his chest; he sat at the head of a table, with the other six friends sitting along the sides. When the cafeteria was pretty full of people, he made a loud noise (to attract attention), stood up, bent over and squeezed his chest. This caused a huge gush of green liquid to spew all over the table; the other six immediately began to eat this green liquid. I think a lot of food went uneaten that night. Send this joke to a friend 3 Here's one that my roommate and myself did to a residence buddy. One morning (early) we taped together a bunch of sheets of newspaper to cover the victims doorframe. Then taped this big sheet over the doorframe which left a gap of about two or three inches between the sheet and the door. Then we filled the gap with paper balls right to the top of the doorway. When he opened the door he was showered with a barrage of paper balls (makes a nice mess too!) Of course, the door has to swing in for this to work! My roommate was (and is) rather inventive and can be quite nasty. He buttered all of the toilet seats in our wing of the residence (fortunately told me first). He also buttered doorknobs at one point. We wrapped celophane over the toilet bowl then replaced the seat: this one can be really messy! Try this: hang a shower curtain out a window. When the person below reaches out and pulls it in, pour a bucket of water onto the shower curtain. Listen to hear the results. Requires a nosy neighbor below you. Six friends of mine and myself tried a less complicated version of the classic dismantling of a car and putting it back together somewhere strange. We lifted a friends car that was parked between two other cars and turned it so that the front and back end were facing the neighboring cars. This posed quite a problem for our friend when he decided to go home. Requires either a small car or a lot of very strong people! :-) I take no responsibility for any back injuries that result from this. Of course I take no responsibility for any of my actions. :-) There are, of course, some fairly standard pranks that are pulled in residence. Typically, people are shafted on their birthday which is therefore a hazardous date to reveal. Total demolition of a room is quite common, but lacks any real humor. A common shaft is to remove everything from the victims room and set it up somewhere else exactly as it was. The best examples I saw of this were: a room moved to the roof of a science building, a room moved to the front courtyard of the residence (really funny when it started to snow!) and a room moved to the dining hall. When I was younger, I had a practical joke genius for a working companion. We both worked in the same computer store for a while. He left and became manager of another store. I remember receiving an envelope with his firms return address on it. Inside was a very silly brochure. I said aloud "There has to be something else in this envelope". So I looked and of course there was a sheet of paper. It read "No there is nothing else in this envelope!" I could never get him back for anything that he pulled but he was an inspiration. The last practical joke that I will relate was one that he taught me and it requires a bit of time to prepare. First you need: iodine cristals and some amonium hydroxide. Mix the two together and a brown sludge will form. Drain off the excess liquid and let the sludge dry. The result? Snap powder, a pressure sensitive explosive. Just sprinkle this on the floor and watch people's reactions. Its quite amusing. Send this joke to a friend 4 I have lived in several different houses with a bunch of guys. Needless to say things got pretty rowdy sometimes and many were victims of some pretty funny jokes. One of the favorites as I recall (and still is) is to go into the bathroom while the victim is taking a shower, and pour a bucket of extreeeemmmlly cold water on them over the top of the shower curtain. This is quite a shocking experience, and if you are fast enough you can get away before the victim finds out you did it. I remember one guy I lived with getting this all the time. One time he got sick of putting up with it and jumped out of the shower into the hall squirting shampoo at everyone in sight. The next time this happened the guys were ready with a camera to take pictures of him as he ran out of the bathroom. These pictures were later shown at his bachelor party. Send this joke to a friend 5
