Pranks
 

This is more of a confession because, honestly, I feel miserable about this all these years later and it haunts me at pubs and bars during my darkest, worst hours. I'm usually a prankster, but these days I do my best to pull ones that have only positive effects and make everyone smile rather than take advantage of a person for the entertainment of others. The following prank I pulled years ago absolutely did not follow that rule.

This is also a lesson to never do this to another person. This old army trick used to avoid duty or training works very, very well. Too well. That aside...

I attended a downtown University in Atlanta known for its high stress environment and, while most of the world was busy shunning the pleasures of smoking, it was the rule rather than exception that the students enrolled in Computer Science at this school led a life fueled by cigarettes. Coffee and smokes woke you up in the morning, alcohol took the edge off the weekends. Most of my classmates had a healthy chemical dependency on one or all of these things. For those that abstained from enjoyment of any one of them, the rest of us spent time during parties and social gatherings trying to convince that person to pick up the habit. The person that successfully convinced an abstainer, for months following, had the ability to proudly proclaim that they started their friend down the wonderful road of addiction. While I had targeted my sober roommate with a bottle, the rest of the crowd was interested in taking my "smoking virginity". I would not, could not touch a cigarette. I hate them.

At some point during that year, my friend, C, celebrated a birthday and invited a large group of us down to his home buried in the cotton fields and pecan orchards of south Georgia for a party. Beer was stocked, stars were gazed at, and general bullshitting took place in the cool night air. After four beers or so, a brilliant idea hits me and I ask C, who was blissfully puffing away, to give me a cigarette. C is elated! A cheer goes up as the Marlboro is lit. While I take a moment to admire my first smoke, other distractions caught the attention of the crowd and no one noticed I never actually took a drag. Instead, I let the cigarette burn almost down to the filter and, nudging the person next to me in a "watch this" suggestion, I tap C's other shoulder and drop the glowing butt into his beer bottle in a single, smooth motion. I assumed he would notice and I'd get socked in the arm for it.

Only, in the darkness, he never saw it.

Some time later, even I had forgotten about the prank and I was only reminded of it once there was a startled gag and a cough. I turned to see C reach into his mouth and pull out a dripping, bare filter, that was only half the size of what I remembered extinguishing. The ash, paper, and tobacco bits were floating in his brew and much of it had already been blindly ingested. I received several punches in my side, everyone had a laugh, and the night went on. No one noticed C suddenly stopped drinking.

That night's rest, with everyone sleeping in various places on the floor, was interrupted in the early hours of the morning with the resulting sound of excessive partying: profuse vomiting. After several minutes, however, it didn't stop. Instead, it becomes more and more violent. An hour goes by, two hours go by. It continues with only brief pauses. 5:00am rolls around and we're still intermittently awakened by the sound of harsh, dry heaves.

Grits, eggs, and black coffee greeted us sometime after the sun began to warm the fields. As we battled hangovers with the greasy goodness, conversation drifts to which of us "overdid it a bit". C walks into the room and there was a stare of death focused squarely on me. The question that broke the awkward silence: "You look like shit, C, how many did you have last night?"

"Three."

My fork fell to the table.

To his day I know, even years later, it’s coming and there is nothing I can do, or should do, to stop it. I am in deep shit and I deserve it. I can only beg for mercy.

Never, ever, drop a cigarette in someone's drink.

It is my belief that there is no hell other than the one we make for ourselves out of the regrets for things we did or didn't do.

I have my own as well. And like mine, you just have to climb out of it when you find yourself sinking deeper.

Do a good deed. It picks you up and teaches you that the bad thing you did can have a good result after a while.

That's an interesting idea. It's a little unfair, since only a decent person would have a regret in the first place.

Even Hell has irony.

Dude, I wish that was the sum of my stupidity and arrogance.

Kitsune, good story, good lesson .... and you've suffered for it.
That said, believe me when I tell you, you're a light weight. Don't beat yourself up over something that was only stupid. ;)

Oh? Something interesting to share, perhaps? :)

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen.
Nobody knows my sorrow.

I've seen a guy chug down a half a coke can filled with Safety Clean. (1.1.1. Trichloroethane Nu).

I've seen a guy have his pants burned off.

I've seen a guy blow his intake manifold and hood off the car.

I've seen a guy split both barrels on a Parker Brothers shot gun.

Practical jokes are neither. :headshake

My best prank wasn't nearly as dramatic as any of those nor stupid, but I loved the shit out of it.

When I was early in my freelance photog career I got a temp job at a big catalog house that shot 4x5 transparencies. There were about five photographers shooting at the same time. I was hired to prep the merchandise and generally help with set ups. When the 2nd assistant found out I could load sheet film I was sent to the darkroom to load and unload film holders. (The film isn't on a roll like a 35 mm camera, it is in individual sheets, 4"x5" which are held in a light proof holder.)

Here's a link to a photo essay on how to do it: http://www.butzi.net/articles/filmload.htm

The film has emulsion on one side and nothing on the other so you want to put the emulsion facing towards the lens. In the dark the only way to tell what side is the emulsion is by means of a notch in the upper right hand corner of the sheet as the emulsion is facing you. The notch also is coded to tell you what kind of film it is too.

So I'm sent into the darkroom with all the film and about 50 holders. I empty all the exposed film into one box, clean out the holders and then reload them, and pass them to the shooters, who pass me the next batch of holders to be down loaded and reloaded etc. This goes on all morning and after lunch. During lunch, the morning's film is sent to the lab and we expect to see it back by about 2 pm. We've already run a test, so we know our exposures are good. We're just going for it now, with a three shot bracket. An aside, the film costs about $2.00 a sheet and processing is about $2.50 a sheet. That doesn't include any production costs or labor, just materials.

By now, I've loaded at least 500 sheets of film, most of which is at the lab. I've come out of the darkroom for a little air and the 2nd assistant sees me and makes some patronizing comment about "how's it goin?" which rubs me wrong so I smile and say "Fine." And then I ask in my best 'Willin' to please, I'm the new guy' voice "How come some of the film has little notches in the corner and some of the film doesn't?"

Thousands of dollars in film and processing, not to mention nearly an entire day of shooting, 5 photographer's day rates, all the set dressers, stylists, and other assistant's fees are flying through this guys mind as he turns several shades of pale. Then I give him my "I'm just fuckin with you look" and he goes and changes his shorts.

It was inspiration and poetry.

WOW!

Scouts can be very cruel and ingenious. Lifting a tent 10' into the air with a sleeping scout in it, snakes with a phobic scout in it, toothpaste on the eyelids (dries hard, you wake them up yelling "you're blind!")... it goes on and on and on.
None of it is funny.
The whole thing with the microwave ray started-out as me thinking of a way to pull a prank on the users... I ended-up coming-up with an idea that bounces the beam back on them smaller and more powerful.
My quandry is... how do I find out if this is going to be deadly or not without having someone freak-out on me?

Oh shit, I forgot about scouts... On second thought, I'll continue to forget about scouts.

The guy across the hall from me got pranked twice this weekend.

The first time one of the roommates dropped his keys while running to catch up to some people and we flipped his mattress, put his futon on his bed (bunked) and set his alarm to 4 in the morning.

The second time the same person forgot to lock his door and some girls put string across the room and dangled toilet paper from it and blew up a bunch of condoms and spread them across the room.