Friday OT: Fool’s Gold

[cyclones500]

I’m subbing this week for @Angie, per her request. I’ll do my best in her temporary absence.

In advance observance of April Fool’s Day, do you have a memorable prank you pulled, or an instance when you fell victim to a clever plot? No requirement that it occurred on All Fools Day, any time of year is fair game.

 

[oldman]

We pulled a few pranks at a former employers. I work in construction and we had a couple superintendents with spaces in our office. While they were out, we swapped their desks, carefully rearranging the items on the desktop to be in the same locations. They couldn't find any of their files for about an hour, until we told them.

Another time we jacked up the back of a project manager's car so the back wheels were just off the ground.He came in and told the boss his gear box must be shot. The boss was in on it too.

 

[throwittoblythe]

I'm not great at this stuff, so mine is pretty tame/lame...

A friend of mine was a freshman at ISU when I was a sophomore. He parked his car at Towers in a non-permit area; he lived in Larch. At 11pm on a week night, we convinced him this was a tow away area and he needed to go move his car right away before the parking police towed his car. It was too late for a Cyride so he ran out to Towers to move his car.

 

[throwittoblythe]

We pulled a few pranks at a former employers. I work in construction and we had a couple superintendents with spaces in our office. While they were out, we swapped their desks, carefully rearranging the items on the desktop to be in the same locations. They couldn't find any of their files for about an hour, until we told them.

Another time we jacked up the back of a project manager's car so the back wheels were just off the ground.He came in and told the boss his gear box must be shot. The boss was in on it too.

Construction sites are the best for jokes. Especially the new interns. "Go get the beam stretcher." "Go measure all the boards and make sure they're exactly 2 inches by 4 inches, and take them back to the store if they're not"

One site I worked on, the foreman played the same prank on any new carpenter who came to the crew. As soon as the new guy would get out of his truck and walk up to the crew, the foreman would point at him and yell to everyone "Oh my god! That's the f---ing guy!!!"

 

[Sigmapolis]

I was roughly 13 or so.

My parents had just bought a new SUV -- had lots of electronic features, bells, and whistles that their previous cars (this was around 2000) did not have up to that point.

One time, my mother was walking out to our detached garage, and a few moments after she went in the door, my dad hit the HONK HONK HONK button on the key fob.

She came out screaming. It was very loud in an enclosed garage.

"THAT CAR'S... DEVICE IS GOING OFF!"

Evidently he touched it to go off just as she touched the door handle. She thought it was a car alarm, even if it was just my father and me screwing with her.

We never told her.

 

[cowgirl836]

so this was ahead of April Fool's Day but last spring DH called me at work to ask if I could talk. Sure, what's going on? He rarely calls me at work.

He says he just got out of a meeting with his manager. And he got laid off. I about passed out - he had just been talking about the bonus he got, excellent reviews, my mind was just in total shock.

I start asking the what why how and he's like just kidding, they want me to go to India.

I start wondering what constitutes justifiable homicide. Oh yeah, and I was about 5 months pregnant at the time. We had to have a conversation about acceptable "jokes" after that.

 

[jdcyclone19]

We once put a mini airhorn underneath the boss's chair. A few of us kind of lingered around the area for when he sat down. He finally leaned back just enough and about had a heart attack, it was hilarious.

 

[CascadeClone]

Wasn't me, but in former job, a guy taped some leeks under another guy's chair. Stunk to high heaven after a day or two.

But the worst thing was, the tape gave out. The leeks fell on the floor, and he unknowingly ground them into the carpet running over them with his chair. It stunk for ages. Just terrible.

 

[Dandy]

When I was a teenager our town cable channels showed the day's Jeopardy episode twice at different times. I watched it in full during the first airing and tried to memorize as many answers as I could then watched it again with my dad during the second airing. I had him freaking out for a little while until I was throwing answers that no teenager from small town Iowa would know. Had him going for a while though!

 

[cyhiphopp]

Construction sites are the best for jokes. Especially the new interns. "Go get the beam stretcher." "Go measure all the boards and make sure they're exactly 2 inches by 4 inches, and take them back to the store if they're not"

One site I worked on, the foreman played the same prank on any new carpenter who came to the crew. As soon as the new guy would get out of his truck and walk up to the crew, the foreman would point at him and yell to everyone "Oh my god! That's the f---ing guy!!!"

Made me think of this construction prank

 

[cyhiphopp]

When I was a teenager our town cable channels showed the day's Jeopardy episode twice at different times. I watched it in full during the first airing and tried to memorize as many answers as I could then watched it again with my dad during the second airing. I had him freaking out for a little while until I was throwing answers that no teenager from small town Iowa would know. Had him going for a while though!

Son! You're a genius!

 

[drlove]

One Friday a co-worker went to the bank to get some cash before going on a family trip. it happened to be his work anniversary. it was customary that you would get a card signed by the VP,or some exec, thank you for your hard work and dedication. Not watching, he opened his card after lunch and put a crisp $100 bill in the card and then exclaimed "hey, I got $100 bonus on my anniversary!" Well that took off and we had some people falling for the joke for several years. One year, I went to the VP to let him in on it and gave him $100 to put in my card. The next morning he personally hand delivered it to me as I was having a morning meeting with my boss (the #1 target for this joke). I opened it and said, "hey $100, thats great!". My boss shaking his head dejectedly commented that he never got $100 in his anniversary card.

After several years, I was feeling bad about it and apologized and tried to come clean and confess, but he didn't believe the confession as "Mark in engineering just got his $100 last week."

 

[ImJustKCClone]

so this was ahead of April Fool's Day but last spring DH called me at work to ask if I could talk. Sure, what's going on? He rarely calls me at work.

He says he just got out of a meeting with his manager. And he got laid off. I about passed out - he had just been talking about the bonus he got, excellent reviews, my mind was just in total shock.

I start asking the what why how and he's like just kidding, they want me to go to India.

I start wondering what constitutes justifiable homicide. Oh yeah, and I was about 5 months pregnant at the time. We had to have a conversation about acceptable "jokes" after that.

The "winner" was for the bolded.

 

[cyhiphopp]

This one is minor but it had an effect.

A few years ago April first fell on a school day.
When my kids woke up for school they came downstairs to eat breakfast.

I grabbed my phone and looked at it real quick pretending to read something.

I told them I got an email from school saying there was a problem with the sprinklers in the building and school was cancelled for the day.

They screamed with joy and my then 9 year old started doing a happy dance.

They were so very very pissed off with me when I said April Fools. It was like a punch in the gut. My middle child teared up a bit.

They did not appreciate my humor to say the least.

 

[cyhiphopp]

My kids decided to draw a spider on the toilet paper a year ago.
Like so:

It would have been funnier if my middle child could keep a straight face. He kept giggling and asking if I needed to go to the bathroom. I caught on.

Good idea, poor execution.

 

[Cyclonepride]

I’m subbing this week for @Angie, per her request. I’ll do my best in her temporary absence.

In advance observance of April Fool’s Day, do you have a memorable prank you pulled, or an instance when you fell victim to a clever plot? No requirement that it occurred on All Fools Day, any time of year is fair game.

In 4th or 5th grade, I sent my buddy to the principal's office, which earned me.....a trip to the principal's office lol. He thought it was pretty funny too.

 

[oldman]

We would put a rubber band on the sink spray attachment, then empty the coffee pot. The victim would always turn the faucet on twice before catching on.

 

[coolerifyoudid]

In high school, about 8 of us picked up our English teacher's Festiva and parallel parked it between two trees with about half a foot of space on each end.

 

[coolerifyoudid]

When I lived on Pearson in Friley one summer, there was a group of us that would constantly prank each other. Onions taped to the back of their tv, taking all of their stuff out of their room and setting it up in the den, duct taping their shoes/clothes to the ceiling, etc.

One guy would take ziplop bags filled with shaving cream and slid the open end under the door and knock. When he heard footsteps, he'd stomp on the bag and unleash foam into the room. It was surprisingly effective.

Not to be outdone, there was this crazy mofo on the floor who decided to take it a step further. He would squirt lighter fluid under someone's door, knock and then light it when they started coming to the door. He had to catch someone's carpet on fire before realizing it was a bad idea. I'm 99% sure he was already on academic probation that summer and didn't return in the fall.

 

[RunninMan]

I went to Graceland University my freshman year, and my roommate and I had a box fan sitting in our open dorm room window. We lived on the second floor and faced the sidewalk that lead to the dining hall. I was sitting at my desk in front of the window when all of a sudden I heard a thud and realized everything in the room, including me, was covered in melting ice cream. It took me a while to figure it out what had happened but when I did all I could do was laugh. The dining hall had a self-serve ice cream machine that was operational for every meal. Someone had got an ice cream cone, saw our open window with the fan running, and chucked it through our window. The window screen and the fan did a nice job of evenly coating our whole room in ice cream. That was a fun one to try to explain to my roommate who was adamant about keeping the room clean.