Pranks

[Kitsune]

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.