April Fool’s Day is the one day on the calendar each
year where my natural personality characteristics are mainstreamed and magically
become acceptable. For a world class practical joker it is a one day vacation,
something close to what a nine year old child feels on Christmas morning. Last year
was the great Year of Jubilee for my officmates since the 1st of
April fell on the Lord’s Day. But this year, I was loaded for bear, courtesy of
a care package that arrived from my sainted niece from California. I was
actually away from the office on April the first, but everyone knows that there’s
a seven day grace period since it’s actually April Fool’s Week if you take the time
to study the ancient manuscripts in the original Greek and Hebrew.
In previous years my pranks have consisted of most
of the old reliables, Vaseline on door knobs, toothpaste on white toilet seats,
rigged showers of orange ping pong balls, cloves of garlic implanted in the
mouthpieces of phones, that sort of thing. But life is about change, and with
the explosion of technological advances, pranks need to be brought into the 21st
century. So, this year I went high-tech.
Victim #: 1
There’s a guy in my office who is terrible on the
computer. Frankly, none of us are very good with them, but this one guy really
struggles. So, I slipped this cool device into one of the ports on the side of
his laptop that plays amazing tricks on its victim at random times. Suddenly,
the all caps feature engages, or random words start typing themselves, and then
the mouse stops working all together. He was having a fit trying to get into his
banking website, cursing his computer and basically going nuts. It was
everything I could do to keep from busting out laughing. The next morning I
broke the news to him that he would not be needed a new computer after all.
Classic!
Victims #2&3:
I placed a small quarter-sized device with a
magnetic back inside the credenza drawer of one of my colleagues’ desks. About
every 3-4 minutes this device would whisper in a very creepy male voice, “Hey,
can you hear me?” It helped tremendously that this particular colleague was a
girl. She began tearing through her desks trying to find the voice but since it
only whispered at random times several minutes apart it was hard to find. When
she did find it she slammed it down on my desk and said in a very disrespectful
tone of voice, “You are so juvenile!!”
Next I placed the same device in her sister’s desk
with similar results except that this one couldn’t find it and begged me to
remove it since it was freaking her out. Honestly, I couldn’t remember where I
had stashed the thing, but I eventually found it. Next I replaced the creepy
voice thing with one that emits small computerized-sounding, high pitched beeps
at random and variously timed intervals. (why don’t these people lock their
doors??). All in all, it was a great day.
Maybe it wasn’t up to my previous standards, like
the year I hung everything that had been sitting on a desk or credenza in
someone’s office from the ceiling on long ropes made out of duct tape. This
lucky person was chosen for this honor since it was her first year in the
business, and her first year around me on April Fool’s Day. Come to think of
it, she was the one who accused me of being juvenile. The great thing about
that particular gag was the fact that when she opened the door to her office
she had her cousin with her and was giving him a tour of her office! The look
on her face when the door flew open was priceless. Juvenile indeed!!
So, the year 2013 has brought April Fool’s Day
antics into the digital age. The mind boggles at the possibilities for the
future!
No comments:
Post a Comment