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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