>           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>           Super Collection of Practical Jokes (part 3 of 4)
>                              2/10/87
>                 From: davidv@sco.COM (David Vangerov) 
>           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> You take the top off the standard sugar dispenser found at restaraunts
> around the country.  You place a single layer of paper napkin over the
> opening in the glass part, then put salt on top of that.  Put the top back
> on and tear off all the paper showing around the edges.  The first victim
> gets salt in his coffee, which I suppose is funny to some people.  But what
> is even funnier is this same guy, or the next, trying to get sugar out of
> the thing.  They think the sugar may be caked and bang the dispenser on the
> table, shake it, hold it up to the light and squint at it, etc. ...
> 
> *******
> 
> Many years ago, before all the young studs started taking their dates to
> motels for, er, recreation, there were always Lover's Lanes around.  On a
> typical moonlit night there might be a dozen cars at one of these places
> with the windows all steamed up from the activities within, and occasional
> flashes of red as flailing feet inadvertantly hit brake pedals.  Some people
> I knew used to get their jollies chaining the bumpers or axles of these cars
> to the nearest fence or tree ...
> 
> The most elaborate joke along these lines was played by three friends of
> mine, whom we'll call Tom, Dick and Harry.
> 
> On a moonlit night as described above, Tom came running out of the woods
> onto the Lover's Lane screaming, "No! NO! Oh, God, Please NO!"
> 
> When Tom had everybody's attention, Dick stepped out of the woods with a
> shotgun, yelled "Now I'll get you, you bastard!" and fired the gun over
> Tom's head.
> 
> Tom dropped to the ground and lay there writhing and screaming until Dick
> came over and fired a blast into the ground near his head, then went limp
> and quiet.
> 
> Then Harry came rushing over, yelling "Jesus, Jack, why'd you DO it? He was
> our FRIEND!!  Oh, my God! ..." and the like.  Then both Dick and Harry
> grabbed Tom by the heels and dragged him back to the woods.  When they were
> out of sight Tom got up and all three enjoyed the activity back at the scene
> of the "crime", which needless to say had changed considerably from a few
> minutes before.
> 
> *********
> 
> Something I have done before is wire someones bed to give them a nice shock.
> 
> It was done as follows:
> 
> strip some stranded wire and use the wire to form a grid under the top sheet.
> it works best to have this grid look like fingers that interlace but don't
> touch.
> 
> this was then connected to the 110 V side of a texas instruments calculator
> transformer.  to the calculator side of the transformer add a 12 or 24 Volt
> DC supply (i can't remember which we used) connected through a normaly
> open switch.
> 
> then press the button rapidly to cause a transient in the transformer.
> 
> It is funny as heck to watch someone wake up as they are getting the
> shock.  if you stop while they are still partially asleep they really
> have trouble figuring out whats going on.
> 
> i'm sure you could automate the process so the person has just enough time
> to fall a sleep before the next shock.
> 
> *********
> 
> When I was at Burroughs Corp., a couple of co-workers got into a get-even
> contest with each others' toolboxes, including such niceties as:
> 
> --Filling toolbox with punched-card chad.
> 
> --Same as above, then pouring oil over everything! <>
> 
> --Wiring toolbox to 110 VAC. (I'm not endorsing these activities; simply
> 			      including them for sake of completeness!!)
> 
> --Supergluing handle to top of toolbox. (Thought that one up myself.)
> 
> --Removing tools; bolting toolbox to floor; replacing tools. (Good one!!)
> 
> *********
> 
> Here is a simple, but fun, practical joke you can try.
> 
> 	You need a phone with a handset so that you can unscrew the
> mouth piece and remove the pickup.  It's real easy, they are just sitting
> in there and not wired down.  Replace the mouth piece and think up a good
> excuse to get someone to use the phone.  This joke was done to me when I
> was in college.  My roommate told me that this girl who I thought was cute
> had called, and that she wanted me to call back.  I felt pretty stupid yelling
> into the phone trying to talk to her.  And all I heard was her say 'Hello,
> hello, is anyone there, hello?'  After I realized what had happened, we
> went out and tryed it on some other friends, with similar results.
> 	It's a good joke because it is totally harmless, and even more
> fun after a few drinks.
> 
> 	For a quick laugh, try:
> 
> 		zork | valspeak
> 
> 	If you don't have valspeak, I would suggest getting a copy. It's a
> great way to hand in weekly reports to your boss.
> 
> *********
> 
> In the good ol' days of punched cards, every keypunch machine had a container
> into which the square "chips" fell.  A favorite practical joke at a certain
> famous Eastern Technological Institute, paralyzed around science, was to dump
> a bag of these collected chips on someone taking a shower and shampoo in the
> dormitory.  It could take weeks to get rid of all those wet chips ....
> 
> *********
> 
> Other types of phone fun...
> 
> While we were in the other room, listening through a modem (we were in NY
> State), a friend of mine, using his impeccable british accent, would
> call a random number in London England..... collect; stating that he was 
> Sir so-and-so from the British consulate or some other such agency. 
> These people would almost all accept.  (It was about 2:00 AM for them,
> so I guess that might be part of the reason...).  He then proceeded
> to take an official telephone survey:
> 
> "1)  Do you believe Margret Thatcher's handling of the Falklands crisis was
>   
>     a)  Excellent
>     b)  fair to good
>     c)  fair
>     etc...
> .....
> 
> At least at the time, it was hillarious... especially his ability to sound
> and act authentically enough for these people to accept the collect call in
> the first place.. form the USA... and then stay on long enough to actually
> do the survay!
> 
> *********
> 
> Here is a classic which has been fading into a lost art.  It works extremely
> well someplace like a military academy or such, where everything must always
> be in impeccable order, but can be used for good effect in a dorm room, too:
> 
> It's the fine art of stringing up a room.  The idea is to string the room 
> (trough makeshift pullies and levers, etc.) such that as the victim turns 
> his door knob and opens the door, his entire room is upset.  One classic
> example involved stringing the bunkbed so that it lifted itself up of the floor
> and turned upside down, books would tumble off a shelf, in turn moving a 
> dresser across the room, emtying a wall locker, pulling the shoes up into the
> light fixtures and otherwise creating serious havoc.  What's nice is that
> the destruction itself is done by the victim; all you did was run a little
> string....  This, however, can lead to serious counter-pranks.  Don't say
> I didn't warn you!
> 
> *********
> 
> Now to add my $.02...
> (This works best if you have several people to work on it)
> One night when one person in my dorm was away at a party, but for some
> unknown reason left his door unlocked (trusting sucker!), several other
> people removed all his furniture and belongings. Most of the stuff went
> to a garbage/storage room, but some of the stuff (the more valuable)
> went to other rooms. When he got back (at 3:?? AM), good and tired, he
> was met with a nice floor lamp in the middle of the room and a telephone
> in the trash basket.
>  Then for the next several weeks, anyone who left their door unlocked
> was asking for it...
> 
> *********
> 
> Reminds me of when I was in first year at UVIC.  At that time, punch-cards
> were used for programming still (They added terminals the year after I left).
> The rectangular cardboard confetti had many uses :-)  That stuff was hard to
> get off of clothes, out of your hair, etc.  One friend of mine decided to
> collect the stuff, so every day he would go around and empty the confetti
> >from the punch machines.  At a party he was going around tossing the stuff
> at people and laughing as they tried to get it out of their clothes (it sure
> itches if you get it in your clothes!).  He had collected a whole paper
> shopping bag full - one of the big ones.  When he got around to me I reached
> out and whacked the bag hard on the bottom as he was reaching in to get another
> handfull.  Well he was looking down into the bag and had his mouth open.  The
> confetti exploded upwards into his face and mouth.  We were practically rolling
> around on the floor watching him trying to clean the stuff out of his mouth
> an off his tongue.  A few days later he got me back by collecting more and
> dumping it on my car, into the ventilation inlets.  To this day years after he
> did this, an occasional rectangular cardboard piece of confetti will float up
> out of the ventilation system every time you turn on the fan/heater.  
> 
> *********
> 
> Here are two of my favorites (which I've never yet performed: maybe I'm just
> not spiteful enough.)
> 
> Prickly pear cacti have two kinds of spines: large ones and tiny reddish
> hairs that are incredibly irritating.  Gather the tiny ones, and distribute
> them into the clothing of someone you detest, perhaps the underwear.  They
> will probably be noticed too late.  Caveat: this should make the clothes
> permanently unusable.
> 
> Collect an engorged tick from a dog, and keep it until it produces an egg
> mass.  Hide the egg mass at a spot where the victim sits.  Several hundred
> tiny "seed ticks" will patiently wait their opportunity to swarm over the
> first warm-blooded creature available.  They are too small to easily pick
> off, and just large enough to see.  (This happened [by accident] to me in
> Georgia this summer.  I wasn't disturbed much, but then I study ticks and
> mites for fun.)
> 
> Don't make an enemy of an imaginative biologist.
> 
> *********
> 
> Speaking of practical jokes, my wife pulled one several years ago...
> 
> For my wife's birthday several years ago, some people at the law office
> where she works hired a male belly dancer to entertain her.  She swore
> sweet revenge.  Six months later, the instigator of the belly dancer
> incident had her birthday.  My wife arranged for the single brother of
> another secretary to meet the instigator for lunch, etc.  The instigator
> didn't know the brother before this, so it looked like someone had hired
> an escort service for her to help celebrate her birthday.  The joke,
> however, backfired.  The secretary and the single brother are now 
> married.  At the wedding, held at a large and famous Chicago hotel,
> a gorilla handed out bannanas to the guests, courtesy of my spouse.
> 
> **********
> 
> This reminds me of something I saw at our residence a couple of terms ago.
> Outside one of the houses was an entire bedroom suite! (bed, desk, chair,
> the whole bit - even the bed was made!) I don't know exactly from which dorm
> it came from or whodunnit but I imagine somebody was not too happy!
> 
> *********
> 
> My favorites:
> 
> Dump a whole bottle of detergent into the
> toilet tank.  This produces great billowing
> suds out of the bowl on first flush.  Especially
> great if first flusher is sitting at the time.
> 
> Use a clip lead to connect the brake light switch
> to the horn relay on the targets car.  Every time
> they step on the brake the horn blows.  It's
> amazing how many people can't associate the horn
> blowing with using the brake.  They just report
> that the horn blows at random times.  This is
> especially useful joke to watch in parking lots
> when work lets out.
> 
> Carefully pick up sleeping targets 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.
> 
> Steal a banana from targets lunch.  Use large sewing
> needle to pierce skin at seam and move needle back
> and forth to "cut" banana in half.  Continue doing
> this along the seam and banana will be sliced when
> peeled by target.
> 
> Saran wrap on reading glasses that have been left on
> desk is good.  Trimming at edge of lens is hard but
> effect is great.  Not usually noticed when first picked
> up but optical quality of saran is spectacularly bad.
> 
> I know of a variation of the fake workmen digging the street
> that worked well.  In the original (very risky) you
> masquerade as real workmen and dig a hole in the street
> and leave.  When this was first done in NY in the fifties
> it was days before anybody realized something was wrong and
> traffic was a disaster until the street department patched
> the hole.  In the variation, the jokers observed real workmen
> digging the street and reported to the police that college
> students were again digging up the street as a joke.  The
> police thanked the tipster and headed for the dig.  In the
> meantime the jokers approached the workmen and toldthem that
> the college had freshmen dressed up as cops as part of
> fraternity initiation and that they would be around soon to
> give the workmen a hard time.  The workmen thought this was
> great and agreed to give the "cops" a hard time back.
> It was a long time before this mess was sorted out.
> (this was my all time favorite practical joke)
> 
> Another idea that I couldn't perfect might be of interest.
> I got one of the air freshener gadgets that had a battery
> operated timer that causes a brief push on a self-contained
> can of air freshener every 10 minutes.  I guess you leave this
> thing in the bathroom and get a brief pssssst of freshener
> every ten minutes.  Anyhow, I tried to change the can of air
> freshener (which is indeed replacable) with a freon horn.
> Unfortunately the freon horns sold for emergency use in boats
> etc. have a different cap on top that I could not adapt
> to the freshener.  If you could make this work you could
> plant this thing in somebodies shrubs or cellar or warehouse...
> or office.
> 
> *********
> 
> This supposedly happened a bunch of years ago, when deposit slips imprinted
> with one's account number were becoming available, but banks still had
> trays with generic deposit slips for their customers' convenience.
> 
> This gentleman opens an account, deposits a few thousand dollars.  He then
> leaves _his_own_ deposit slips in the counter slots in various branches.
> A few days before next month's statements appear, he goes in, checks his
> balance, withdraws one hundred eighty thousand dollars in cash, and
> disappears.  Seems the system credited his account with deposits that
> others made (seemingly to their accounts) using his slips.
> 
> And one that doesn't involve banks, but allegedly happened...
> 
> College student returns to his room to find a bucket of water amateurishly
> balanced above the door, ready to fall on him when he opens the door.  So
> he lifts down the bucket and empties it into his sink.
> 
> Too bad the perpetrators also removed the drain pipe from the sink.
> 
> *********
> 
> In the last few hours before the Corps of Cadets dorms closed for
> Christmas break, someone led a horse into a departed friend's room
> and shot it.  When the dorms reopened a month later, the smell was
> so fierce that the entire wing of the building was unusable.
> 
> *********
> 
> These were told to me by a friend who once attended Devry Inst. in
> Arizona (a tech. school for electronics types).  Three favorite
> practical jokes were:
> 
> (1) The access to the supply room (to obtain lab materials) was via
>     a Dutch door (two-piece job where either top or bottom could be
>     opened independently), where the top half was left open so
>     students could lean over and request supplies.  The lab grunts
>     wired a thin filament wire to a power supply and strung it across
>     the top of the bottom portion of the door.  Normal instincts of
>     students led them to lean or place hands there while waiting for
>     materials, and were met with a small yet satisfying jolt.
> 
> (2) This one I've heard of from various sources.  Charge up a bell-type
>     capacitor and tape the leads in such a way that they are almost
>     but not quite touching.  Call to the victim with a rousing "Here,
>     catch!" and lob the cap to them.  When they catch, the slight
>     squeezing pressure will connect the leads and the capacitor will
>     pop. (VARIATION: Leave 'loaded' cap on chair for them to sit on)
> 
> (3) The most common labs involved circuit design and troubleshooting,
>     and students were forever wary as they applied power to a new circuit
>     for the first time.  My friend's prank involved running some thin
>     hollow plastic flex tubing from his lab station to a point below and
>     behind the victim's station.  He would then light up a cigarette and
>     wait.  As soon as the victim applied power to his circuit, he would
>     blow ciggie smoke into his end of the tube.  Within a few seconds,
>     victim would see smoke rising from his board and cut power.  He would
>     examine board, find no trouble, and fire it up again.  Soon smoke
>     would appear ... this can be stretched out for a good long time, or
>     until he sees the tubing.
> 
> *********
> 
> Try this one out sometime.  While the victim is asleep
> carefully put Vaseline between his/her toes.  What you will
> obeserve is the person's toes starting to wiggle.  The
> apparent mechanism is that when your toes start slipping against
> each other, your mind insists on making them slip and slide
> more and more.  The upshot of this is that the part of the mind
> that's supposed to be getting rest is busy moving toes.  The
> victim wakes up having had no sleep at all.
> 
> How 'bout this:  if the victim uses Head 'n Shoulders or Selsun
> Blue shampoo, and a few drops of methylene blue (available in pet stores)
> to a FULL bottle.  Over time (if the victim is fair-haired), you will
> notice their hair turning blue, as methylene blue stains all organic
> material.
> 
> Also writing things on someone's back with indellible ink is pretty
> good. Use your imagination.  "Laugh, but don't tell me about it." is a
> pretty good one.
> 
> Get a group of people to chip in 1 or 2 bucks, and bet the victim the collected
> sum that he or she can't put a cue ball in his/her mouth.  Hint:  cue balls
> go in, but they don't come out.  In fact, medical science has developped a
> tool to aid in the removal of cue balls.
> 
> Take doors.  Just take them off the hinges and put them somewhere else.
> 
> *********
> 
> 	Another paper punch-hole trick that is even better is to take
> a plastic 35mm film canister, paper punch-holes and a can of freeze
> spray (at fine electronics stores everywhere).  Fill the film canister
> with about 1/4" of freeze spray then add punch-holes until the film
> canister is at least half full, replace the lid on the canister, set
> the canister on a desk or shelf and then wait for the fun.  The neat
> thing is that when the canister pops it shoots paper all over the
> area (sort of like a party 8-)).  Before you try this with the con-
> fetti, experiment with just the freeze spray and canister, different
> amounts of liquid causes it to pop at different times.
> 	I know one person who filled one of those blue solder extractor
> bulbs half full of freeze spray, sealed the end and put it under his
> bench at work, he thought it might make a pretty good pop and after
> 30 minutes had completely forgotten about it.  It went off about ten
> minutes later and could be heard all over the building (he later told
> everyone that a power supply had blown).
> 	Bubble pack behind the wheels of an occupied chair also causes
> some fun when the unsuspecting person rolls back.
> 
> 	Actually I'd rather hear mind game type jokes which are
> a lot more fun.  ex:
> 	Bet some one they can't eat a slice of bread in less than a
> minute.  Conditions are, nothing on the bread and nothing with the
> bread (like water).  There are people who can win the bet, but 
> watching them suffer is worth loosing, and I have won more money 
> than I have lost.
> 
> *********
> 
> Back when I was in high school a friend of mine, Robert, hurt his back while
> rolling his car and had to wear a plaster cast around his torso, from
> just under his armpits to a few inches below the navel.  When he wore
> a jacket it was impossible to tell he had on a body cast.  Now, for
> maximum effect you have to picture Robert.  He was a tall beanpole with
> hair down to his butt (this was around 1975), a scraggly beard, John Lennon
> type glasses with blue tinted lenses, and old clothes.  One day we
> decide to go on a picnic at a local park.  So here we have 4 hippies
> in a park surrounded by families, when Robert grabs a large butcher
> knife, jumps up, yells 'GODDAMN IT I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE', and
> plunges the knife into his chest.  This was followed by some very
> dramatic histronics as he fell to the ground, ending up on his back
> with the knife sticking up in the air.  Well, the three of us knew
> the knife was really in the cast, not his chest, so we double up
> laughing as these families are looking on in shock.  I'll never forget
> some of the looks on those people's faces.
> 
> Good ol Ray decides to do Robert one better.  He grabs the picnic
> basket, yells 'lets go!', and runs off to the van.  Naturally we
> followed, leaving Robert laying on the ground with the knife sticking
> up.  Boy, this really got them families into shock!  Robert realizes
> he's suddenly all alone and tries to get up and run after us.  If you
> want to see something funny sometime watch someone with 50 pounds
> of plaster wrapped around their chest, who can't bend at the waist,
> try to get up unassisted off their backs.  Then picture this person
> trying to run after a van, in which his 3 buddies are driving off.
> Remember, Robert still has this knife sticking out of his chest.
> Boy, them families didn't know what the hell was going on.
> 
> Anyway, we went down the road 100 yards or so, just enough to scare
> the crap out of Robert, and stopped to let him get in the van.  I still
> wonder what some of those families thought of that episode.
> 
> *********
> 
>   I became a somewhat involved spectator in a similar incident...
> The biology teacher at my high school, Mr. Evans, was an incurable wit. He
> was the one teacher everybody liked. He was the one who made sure that we
> dissected Ascaris worms (long white stomach worms) the same day the lunch
> room served spaghetti. One day, he fished out a four-foot preserved boa
> constrictor and laid it on the floor just inside the biology lab door. Then
> he put a preserved frog in its mouth. Then he stood by the door waiting for
> class to start, watching students' reactions as they opened the door. I had
> the misfortune to arrive right behind one of the more excitable girls.
> (click.) (door opens) AAAAAAAAAAAAK!       She ran right over me!
> 
>   Mr. Evans related tales of his college days. He said one of his professors
> was a real joker (by HIS standards!) who let his pet tarantula roam loose in
> the room during class. You could track its progress by watching people pick
> up their feet. He made some ammonium tri-iodide and painted it on the floor
> before class. People walk in. BANG! POP! POW! When you pick up one foot, you
> have to put the other one down. BAM!
> 
>   I always wanted to put some inside the school bell. Ding-BOOM!
> 
> *********
> 
>   Switch the "MEN" and "WOMEN" signs on a pair of public bathrooms while
> they're occupied. Great at airports, hotels, and bars.
> 
> *********
> 
> You can do this to a business associate whom you think is a jerk:
> 
> Get a few copies of his business card.  Hopefully, it has his home
> phone number on it.  Go to your local red-light district and
> pass them out to the girls (or guys) saying "Call me some time."
> 
> This is most effective if he has a family.  If he is single, he
> may want to thank you.
> 
> *********
> 
> My father loves to tell of the builder he knows who had to evict some guy
> >from one of his rental houses.  It seems the renter left his pet in the 
> master bedroom.  A duck with lots of food and water...  The builder
> didn't get around to checking out the house for about a week.
> Yech.  Needless to say, the not only the carpet needed replacement, but
> the sub-floor also.
> 
> *********
> 
> Apparently there is a well-known story in the television industry about the
> early days, when parts were scarce and 'friendly competition' was just be-
> ginning between the networks.  There was going to be an important speech by
> someone important, probably President Eisenhower or someone of that stature.
> Naturally, all (both?) of the networks wanted to cover this speech.  But on
> the day of the speech, the tube in NBC's camera went dead.  There was no hope
> to order a replacement in time, so the NBC brass called the CBS brass to ask
> if they could borrow a tube until they could get a replacement (maybe they
> borrowed a whole camera, I don't know).  At any rate, the good-natured guys
> at CBS said sure, they would deliver a tube to them in plenty of time for the
> speech.
> 
> Well they DID loan NBC a tube, but not before setting it up in a camera and
> focusing it on the brightly lit door to the men's room.  To understand what
> happened, you must realize that these early "image-orthicon" tubes were ex-
> tremely sensitive.  So sensitive in fact, that a bright unchanging image would
> "burn-in" to the face of the tube and remain for hours, or even permanently
> if the damage was severe enough.   So to make a long story even longer, when
> NBC brodcasted the speech, the president appeared with "MEN" emblazoned across
> his forehead.  Of course they discovered it much too late to do anything about
> it (this was live TV, folks).
> 
> (This was a story I heard from someone who worked at a CBS affiliate TV station
> and may or may not be true, or the networks involved may be wrong.)
> 
> *********
> 
> A little gentler trick that a co-worker pulled up here a few years ago
> depended on the sound module from one of those dolls that cries unless
> you rock it back and forth. He fastened it to the bottom of someone's
> chair. The someone comes and sits down, and starts working on his
> terminal. As he gets into it, this vague "wa-wa" noise starts up from
> some unidentifiable direction. The victim looks around (moving the chair)
> and the crying stops. Oh, well, who cares. Back to work. A little later,
> the crying starts up again. This one was good for several minutes.
> 
> Oh yes, someone mentioned freon bombs. Things can get hairy with those
> around a power supply design group. And the following is a good way
> to make a switcher designer an enemy for life - or a few days, at least:
> 
> *********
> 
> Now for a *harmless* practical joke.  My favorite telephone gag is to
> call someone at random, and with an official tone rattle off this warning
> before they can interrupt:
> 
> 	"This is the telephone company calling.  There is some trouble with
> 	your line.  Please do not answer any calls for the next five minutes
> 	or the person on the other end may be electrocuted.  Thank you."
> 
> Hang up, and wait about two minutes.  Call them back.  When they answer, just
> scream "AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!" and hang up.
> 
> *********
> 
> My freshman year we had a trick that went around my old dorm.
> Someone would put shaving cream on a phone receiver and a
> confederate would call.  The victim would then answer the
> phone and sploosh the shaving cream into his ear.  Worked
> 90% of the time.
> 
> One kid in particular got hit hard.  Once a day for two weeks.
> Even when no one suspicious was around.  It became a challenge to see
> how many times he could be had.  One day he was in another part
> of the dorm, where the craze to get your roommate with the
> trick had just begun.  The kid came into the room of a mutual
> friend totally depressed about having been had *so* many times.  He
> proceeded to demonstrate to everyone in the room what would happen:
> "The phone would ring and I would pick it up like this"--
> he picks up the phone and -- sploosh:  gets it again!  The phone
> had been set up for my friend's roommate seconds before the kid had
> entered.  
> 
> *********
> 
> 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 hased to try to answer the thing only he can't.
> And if he sets it down it hangs up!
> 
> *********
> 
> Practical Joke at a party.
> 
> Take a sheet of cardboard or a throw away magazine, form a cone with it.
> Take the cone, a coin, and a liquid refreshment (water causes least damage)
>  in a bottle or a cup, of course you will be pretending its your drink.
> Challenge the victim (bet a sum), that they can not drop the coin, placed
> on their forehead, with their eyes closed, into the top of the cone shoved
> into their pants at the waist within so many tries.
> To prove that it is possible, demonstrate the procedure a few times, you'll
> be supprised that it is possible. (practice before hand)
> When the victim tries it, as soon as the eyes close, pour the liquid down
> the cone.
> 
> *********
> 
> I was party once to an attempt at humorous cow placement. I attended a
> boarding school that actually had a dairy farm ( George School, Pa. -
> The farm is since defunct ) We thought it would be a simple matter to coax
> a cow over to the main building.
> 
> Cows, however, live a life of routine, to which they adhere tenaciously.
> I'll never forget the sight of that cow placidly loping back to the barn
> with two or three upperclassmen dangling from it.
> 
> *********
> 
> Another idea for a practical joke is to put goldfish in all the toilets.
> I haven't tried this, but it should be interesting to see what people do.
> 
> *********
> 
> An acquaintance of  mine and  his friend were  once asked to leave a rather
> posh country club for what  they considered innocent  fun-loving  behavior.
> To  get revenge  for their  inconvenience   and show what  truly  obnoxious
> behavior is like, on their way out the  door they went  into the coat room,
> and exchanged all  the keyrings they could find  in people's jacket pockets
> for similarly shaped keyrings from other pockets.
> 
> Then they sat in their car in the parking lot and enjoyed their revenge!  It
> was evidently quite a show.
> 
> *********
> 
> 	In view of the large number of recent postings of college practical
> jokes, I'll 'fess up that some friends and I were the instigators of many a
> prank while undergraduates in college.  The following are some of the better
> pranks:
> 
> 1.	I lived in a three-story dorm during my freshman year.  Most everyone
> listened to the same radio station, which played the National Anthem at the
> stroke of midnight every night.  It occured to my roommate and I that there
> should be some kind of stunt that could be arranged which could use the
> playing of the National Anthem as a coordinating cue.  Finally, we hit upon
> the answer: at the stroke of midnight everyone in the dorm would flush their
> toilet!  Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending upon your point of view),
> all of their toilets were of the tank variety so that a simultaneous "flush"
> would guarantee a copious discharge of water into the sewer.
> 	We really didn't know what would happen when The Time arrived; bets
> ranged from "no event" to blowing the basement rec room toilets off the
> floor.
> 	The Time was a Monday evening, and I figure we had about a 90%
> participation rate.  The results were not disappointing: a cleanout plug
> (which upon retrospection must not have been properly secured) blew out
> of the floor in a basement utility room, resulting in about 1/2 inch of
> water over the basement floor.
> 	The campus maintenance people went apeshit the next day trying
> to figure out what happened; as far as I know, no one ever told them the
> truth.
> 
> 2.	It somehow came to our attention that most of the campus street
> and walkway lighting came on _simultaneously_ each night, the actual time
> being based upon the actual level of ambient light.  It was obvious that
> there was a central control point with a photoelectric sensor somewhere.
> 	After a few exploratory tours of the campus, we came upon a likely
> location: two photoelectric controls mounted on the roof of a service
> building directly across from the campus electrical substation.
> 	After "borrowing" an extension ladder from a telephone company truck
> (which was always left parked near a service building), one Friday night
> about 10:00 PM (peak campus traffic time) we climbed on the roof of the
> service building and taped flashlights to each of the two photoelectric
> sensors.  Instant blackness!
> 	Actually, the most amazing part was that it took OVER ONE HOUR for
> the campus maintenance people to restore the lights!  I would have thought
> there to be some kind of manual override for the photoelectric cells, but
> perhaps the maintenance people thought there was some kind of underground
> cable fault so they didn't rashly restore power.
> 
> 3.	My father managed a soap manufacturing company ever since I was a
> little kid, so I grew up with some knowledge of soap formulation chemistry.
> There was a civic building near the campus with a large outdoor fountain,
> and it occurred to be that the water in this fountain needed "treatment"
> when the fountain was turned on in the spring.  While home for spring
> break, I swiped from my father's plant two gallons of a surfactant called
> Triton X-100 (a tradename of Rohm & Haas).  This surfactant _really_ foams;
> like a few drops will fill a bathtub with suds.
> 	So one night, some friends and I carefully filled some thin plastic
> bags with the surfactant, and then casually threw the bags into the fountain
> (the bags broke upon impact).  The next morning, the fountain was a mass of
> soapsuds.  The next evening, the picture of the fountain made the front
> page of the local newspaper.  The caption beneath the picture attributed
> the soapsuds to college "spring fever".  Since we weren't caught, I wonder
> how they knew that???
> 
> 4.	The father of my dorm roommate worked as a repairman for the Otis
> Elevator Company.  One weekend, I stayed with my roommate at his parent's
> home.  While talking with his father, we learned an _amazing_ fact: almost
> all escalators are reversible for use in breakdowns or emergencies; there
> is usually a key-operated reversing switch located under the handrail at
> each end of the escalator.  We also learned a second _amazing_ fact: most
> all Otis elevators and escalators use the _same_ key.  While my roommate's
> father went out for the evening, we swiped his work keys, and were able to
> get many of them duplicated.
> 	As soon as we returned to campus on Sunday evening, we went in
> search of an Otis Elevator (we didn't have to go far - our dorm had one).
> Sure enough, we had The Key.  Over the next few days, we found that The Key
> worked on every Otis Elevator that we tried on campus.
> 	We were now ready for en escalator (there were none on campus), and
> we readily found one in a five-floor department store in the heart of the
> downtown shopping district.  It was an Otis, and sure 'nuff it had a reversing
> switch at each end beneath the handrail.
> 	We came back on Wednesday night, which was the peak shopping night
> of the week.  There were two pairs of escalators - one at each end of the
> store.  After nervously waiting for the right moment when no one was on
> the UP escalator, and no one was looking, my roommate inserted The Key, and
> turned it.  Grrr-klunk-grrr.  The UP escalator came to a halt, and reversed
> direction - it was now going DOWN!   We quickly went to the other escalator
> pair, and I got the honor of inserting the key.
> 	We now had an increasingly crowded department store with four
> escalators on the main floor, all going down!  We tried to act inconspicuous
> as possible (not easy with half dozen 18-19 year-olds sporadically going into
> fits of hysterical laughter!) and watch the action.  People would step on the
> UP escalator without looking at direction, and then step back in shock.
> Then shock would change to disbelief: an UP escalator going DOWN - impossible!
> People in the store were forming an oval as they traveled from the front
> escalators to the rear and back, trying to figure out how to get to the
> second floor.  After about ten minutes of this, with the main floor crowd
> growing larger, a _very_ agitated person wearing a suit (must have been the
> manager) came by with a big ring of keys, frantically trying each key in the
> escalator until he found the right one to operate the key switch.  Since
> the manager was eying us suspiciously, we didn't stick around to find out any
> more about the situation.
> 
> *********
> 
>    The apocryphal friend-of-a-friend brought a can of chunky
> beef stew on board an airliner.  At some point he emptied the
> contents into the barf bag.  Later during some minor turbulence
> he pantomined using the bag in the conventional way.  When the
> flight attendant asked if she could dispose of the bag for him,
> he replied, "Not yet, there are some choice bits that I haven't
> finished with yet," and proceded to pick out chunks from the bag
> and eat them.  According to my informant, everyone nearby immediately
> tossed their cookies.
> 
> *********
> 
> 	Here's another way to have Fun with Sound:
> 
> 	Several years ago, a friend who manages a large retail store gave
> me an electronic bird call used to add "realism" to store displays.  This
> device was about 4 inches in diameter and 2 inches high, with a speaker
> on the top.  It was powered by a 9-volt battery, and had two controls:
> a 5-position "voice" selector, and a time delay control to set the
> interval between calls (up to 60 seconds).
> 	For a device which used just discrete transistor circuitry, the
> bird calls were amazingly realistic - especially if the time interval was
> long between calls.
> 	I have had much fun with this gadget, especially planting it in
> people's houses (basement and garages are good places).  The unsuspecting
> victims really believe that there is a bird trapped in their house - and
> go ape trying to find it.
> 	If anyone wants one of these devices, they can be purchased from
> any company which sells retail store display fixtures; I don't believe they
> cost much money.
> 
> *********
> 
> Another good practical joke taken from the "Tippy Turtle" series on Saturday
> Night Live is as follows:
> 
> Take one of those musical grreting cards (the type that play a song when
> opened) and carefully rip out the part that actually plays the music. This
> is only about the size of a quarter. When the victim isn't watching, plant
> this somwhere near him/her. Since it is so small, it is relatively easy to
> hide in a pocket, purse, etc. Afterwards, watch the victim become maddened
> by the recurrence of Jingle Bells, Happy Birthday, etc. in the background.
> 
> I was a victim of this one, and at first I thought I was hearing the muzak
> at the restaurant I was eating at. After I was done, I returned to my car
> and the music followed me. I thought I was going insane.
> 
> ********* < This batch entered March 1 >
> 
> My sister was the butt on this one.... She had a box turtle who
> lived in a terrarium in her room.  I haunted pet shops and bought a
> series of turtles, as identical as possible, but getting smaller and
> smaller.  She was quite concerned....
> 
> After a while, I got tired of the game, so I reversed the process till
> she had the original (who was bigger by now) back, and took the rest
> down to the woods and let them loose.
> 
> 				STella Calvert
> 
> 			Love is the law, love under will!
> 
> *********
> 
> Gather a bunch of freshmen together at a party, telling them the punch
> is spiked.  Observe for about half an hour while some of them get
> high on the sugar.  Then bring out a couple of bottles of Everclear
> and dump them in.  People will sober suddenly, then dip in and rapidly get
> silly.  Let simmer for about an hour, preferably taking pictures.
> Then announce that there is still no alcohol in the punch.
> Make sure that film is safe first.  Everyone goes home safe and sober.
> 
> Not very funny you say?  Well, then use real alcohol instead of sugar
> water and laugh hysterically while people get sick, slip on the stairs,
> wreck their cars, etc.  Great fun.
> 
> *********
> 
> Way back when, like before electric lights were invented, I worked in
> an engineering department where the general-use computer was an IBM 1130.
> This was a standalone computer of roughly PDP-11/34 power with a disk,
> console typewriter, slow line printer.  Its primary I/O was a combination
> card reader/punch.  Some things you ought to know before proceeding futher:
> 
> 1. The card reader/punch had one input hopper and two output hoppers.
> Cards came from the input hopper through the read station, through the
> punch station, to whichever output hopper was selected.  Cards could be
> read, punched, or both as the program saw fit.
> 
> 2. The CPU had a "bootstrap" mode in which it read one card as the
> binary image of a program and executed that program.  The standard
> "coldstart" card had enough program on it to read in the operating
> system's startup block which then got the whole software system going.
> 
> 3. The user community used the machine mostly for applications written
> in FORTRAN and was largely ignorant of the details of computers and
> how they work.
> 
> Still with me?  Good.  Naturally, _any_ card without characters printed
> on it and with lots of holes all through it looked, to the uninitiated,
> like the "coldstart" card that people placed at the start of their decks.
> So it was a small matter to leave a few spurious cards around the computer
> room and wait for the results.
> 
> My favorite was the card that just ran the deck through the reader/punch,
> placing alternate cards in the other output hopper.  What a delight with
> long decks!  One fellow was so sure he'd done something wrong that he
> took his cards, reassembled them into the right order, and ran them through
> _again_ with the same bogus coldstart card.
> 
> I never did work up the nerve to write the one that punched all the holes
> in all the cards following.
> 
> *********
> 
> All this talk about practical jokes reminds me of one I heard about in high
> school.   It seems that a psychology class decided to give their new found
> knowledge of the "power of suggestion" a little test.  Some of the students 
> had another class together and decided to play a little trick on their teacher.
> Whenever the teacher was on the left side of the room, they would act really
> interested and when he was on the right side of the room, they would act really
> bored.  Well, it seems that this behavior did its job on the teachers sub-
> conscious and he was practically crawling on the left wall by the end of class.
> 
> *********
> 
> At my high school (many years ago) over a dozen Polymorphic 88 S-100
> computers were used to teach computer lit in the math department.  Now I
> was the curious type and I took to reading the supplementary documentation
> to the operating system and I implemented a number of nasty suprises for
> the other students.
> 
> NOTE: These changes were never to the boot tape just to the currently
> running copy, so the changes dissapeared when the system was rebooted.
> 
> 1. Change the prompt to some strange greek character that no-one knew
> existed in the machine before.
> 
> 2. Change the opening logo to something humerious and strange like Muppet
> Labs Operating System V.0.1
> 
> 3. Change the (Go to Monitor) command to return.  To leave monitor a
> command must be entered which is terminated by return, which is no longer
> available from the keyboard and results with the screen clearing and the
> monitor all fresh and ready to accept a command!  Very nasty!
> 
> [Englishmania - It's not English, but an INCREDIBLE simulation!]
> 
> *********
> 
> One that's good for a few chuckles with a new user is, while they're away
> >from the terminal put a few cute aliases in their .profile, .login,
> whatever, for example:
> 
> 	  alias ls echo 'ls:  command not found.'
>    or     alias vi rm
> 
> (The second one is admittedly a bit nastier).
> 
> *********
> 
> A simpler variation was played on me when I was but a mere first-year at U of
> Toronto.  One day, I was logged in at a terminal and I left for a few minutes
> to go collect output from the printer.  A friend of mine leapt into action and
> changed my prompt from $ to 'Login incorrect.  Login:'.  Then he logged me off.
> He told me that the daemon had logged me off because I'd been on to long.  
> Needless to say, when I tried (and unbeknownst to me, succeeded) to log on, I
> was told that I hadn't logged in correctly.  Well as I said, I was a first-
> year and thoroughly unfamiliar with UNIX so I became very confused.  My friend
> did tell me what happened, however, since we were limited to 5 hours a week.
> 
> Incidently, he's no longer my friend (oohhh hint hint hint).
> 
> *********
> 
> Many years ago, when some neighbors moved away and their house was
> vacant for a few weeks, my brother installed an extra doorbell in
> the basement, and ran the wires out along the rear sidewalk,
> terminating them under a flagstone tile by the alley. After the
> new neighbors moved in, if he was coming home late at night (1 A.M.
> or later) he'd stop by with a lantern battery and connect it up to
> the wires. After about 20 seconds you'd see the upstairs bedroom
> light come on. Another ten seconds later the hall light would come
> on, then a few lights on the first floor. At this point he'd
> disconnect the battery and go home, and not repeat it for a couple
> of weeks. He continued this for a couple of years.
> 
> He had also installed a loudspeaker in the attic, running the wires
> outside, but either they found that one, or the wires broke, so he
> never got to use it.
> 
> *********
> 
> This is one that a friend of a friend of mine did to his mom.
> 
> This kid was going somewhere with his mom in the car.  The kid
> was in the back seat, and the mom was driving.  It was summer
> time, so the kid had the window rolled down.
> 
> Anyway, the kid see's this jogger comming up the side of the road,
> so he starts motioning to the jogger.  The jogger didn't really
> know what was going on, but just as the car passed the jogger, the
> kid reached out of the window, and whaked the side of the car rather
> loudly with his hand.  The jogger, getting the idea, dove in the ditch
> and acted like he was in great pain (similar to the pain he would
> feel, say if he just got hit by a car).
> 
> The mother obviously notices the loud noise and see's the dieing
> jogger in the ditch, slams on the breaks to see if this poor guy
> is dead or not.  Naturally she is worried sick.
> 
> *********
> 
> Put a couple of cc's of methylene blue in a coke/coffee/dark colored
> drink.
> 
> The next time the person has to use the restroom, surprise!!! blue
> urine.
> 
> *********
> 
> A friend of mine, "BUX", recounts a tale of mirth caused to by two bored 
> hackers on a PDP/11 running RSTS/E.  They wrote a program which wandered
> around the system looking for people in the editor.  Once found they siezed
> control of the terminal.  On the bottom of the screen the program wrote
> 
> "I think there's a bug in your program!"
> 
> Then a cute little character'ature of a bug ran across the screen.  Then
> the screen was repainted and they relinquished control of the terminal.
> Leaving the poor victim cleaning his glasses, checking his coke can, and 
> rubbing his eyes.  This worked best late at night.
> 
> **********
> 
> Ok, this forces me to tell one more of my favourites.  I worked once in an
> academic setting where folks tended to complain that UNIX operating system
> was user-unfriendly.  I had a program that generated the message (to random  
> users)
> 
>  Hello.  This is the new user-friendly interface of the UNIX operating system
> wishing you a pleasant day and happy computing.  UNIX is the registered
> trade mark of Bell Laboratories.
> % 
> 
> *********
> 
> Here is a practical joke I played on a substitute teacher in junior
> high.  Numerous variations on the theme are possibile (jury-rigged
> showers in chem. labs, fire sprinklers, etc.)
> 
> The classroom (Earth Science class)had the normal lab sinks with spouts
> shaped like inverted J's.  Over the years (old school) some of the
> J-shaped pieces of pipe had broken off.  This was during the energy
> crises years, and the schools shut the classroom's heat off after
> school.  In order to prevent the pipes from freezing, they were drained
> nightly.  The janitor would often forget to turn the water on until 4th
> period, much to the consternation of us 1st period students when we had
> to use the sinks.
> 
> I waited until a day when a substitute teacher showed a film.  After
> everyone else filed out of the room, I simply opened a faucet or two
> that led to a broken sink.  As luck would have it, the water was turned
> on during 4th period *in the middle of the film*.  To make matters
> worse, the broken pipes had been used to dispose of used gum at various
> times.  All this old hard gum acted much like a finger on the end of a
> garden hose.  Naturally, the first thing the sub did when utter chaos
> broke out in the middle of the film was to turn on the lights.
> Unfortunately, one of the lights was right over one of the `geysers,'
> and the lights stayed on for about two seconds before going off again.
> It was several minutes before everyone figured out what had happened,
> the faucet was turned off, and the janitor had turned the circuit
> breaker to the room on again.
> 
> No matter how hard the sub tried, she could never get anyone to confess
> to doing it.  She even kept the class after school without success.
> 
> When a friend in 4th period told me what had happened, I almost died
> laughing.
> 
> *********
>