A Practical Confession From A Practical Joker

[LadyJag]

Alright. I admit it. I am a joker. Sure, I'm your mild-mannered work-at-home mom now, but not to long ago, when I worked in a cube farm, I was revered, or maybe it was feared, for my skills in office pranks.

Sometimes I miss those days - the laughs, the excitement, the confetti bombs... But like I said, I'm home now, so my pranking days are pretty much over. I mean, what am I going to do, switch out my toddler's Honey Nut Cheerios with metal nuts and washers, then shout "April Fool!" when she starts choking? Definitely NOT funny!

So here is my list of my top office pranks. Feel free to steal these ideas if you want, but it's at your own risk. In other words, don't come crying to me because you got fired from your job after blowing up your boss's cubical (see Exploding Cubical)!

Misdirected
I'll start off with a simple joke. At my previous company, the elevators would drop you off in the middle of the building. There were 6 elevators, and 2 exits from the elevator bay - one to the left, and one to the right. Most folks would use the artwork on either side of the bay like stars to navigate to their cubicals in the mornings.

One day I thought, "wouldn't it be funny to switch the pictures on the walls so that the picture on the north wall was now to the south of the elevators, and the picture on the south wall was now on the north side?" As you can guess, there were a LOT of lost souls wandering the floor that morning, wondering where their desk was!

Her Face Rings A Bell
I should mention that when my co-workers went on vacation, they EXPECTED me to prank them! Yes, I like to believe that they even looked forward to seeing what creative "welcome back" was waiting for them in their cubicals.

So when one of my co-workers (we'll call her Jane Doe) left for Rome for 2 weeks, I had plenty of time to plan something extra special for her return. First, I happened to have a very unflattering digital picture of her from the previous Christmas party. (Seriously, it looked like I photographed her in mid-sneeze!) Well, a few clicks of the mouse at her computer, and voila! That picture became her desktop!

But that just wasn't funny enough, so I downloaded a free icon-maker from the internet, did some creative cut and paste around her face in the picture, and poof! ALL the icons on her desktop showed her distorted sneezy face. Better, but STILL not quite there.

Using a microphone plugged into my PC, I called her voice mail and recorded her saying her name. Then, I did some more creative editing, and looped her name to create a "Jane Doe-Jane Doe-Jane Doe-Jane Doe" .wav file! I transferred the file to disk, then uploaded it to her computer, and made the file EVERY command sound - error, close window, start up, shut down, open file, minimize, maximize, etc." Finally, I turned the volume on her computer and her speaker volume up full blast!

When my co-worker returned, she cautiously looked around her cube, wondering what I did. She powered up her PC, and said, a little timidly, "OK, Laura, what did you d..." About that time, her PC started up and her own voice screamed "Jane Doe-Jane Doe-Jane Doe-Jane Doe!" across the floor, while her sneezy face, speckled with tons of tiny sneezy faces, popped up on her monitor!

Exploding Cubical
Sometimes, it's the simpler pranks that are the funniest, and I am particularly proud of this one. The lady in the cubical next to me used to be pretty darn jumpy. I mean, I could sneak up behind her at her desk, and softly say "Boo," and she would scream! So you can imagine the fun I had concocting an appropriate prank when SHE went on vacation! (Wha-haha!)

I happened to have a few [boxes of] pull-apart firecrackers, that I bought for a quarter at a little magic shop. These are kind of like little Gator Snaps/Finger Snaps, except instead of squeezing them between your fingers, you pulled the strings on either end of the pop. Basically, it looked like a micro-miniature tampon with 2 strings.

Anyway, I rigged these little firecrackers all OVER her cubical - in her file cabinet, to explode when she opened any drawer, attached to her desk and chair so that it exploded when she pulled her chair out, attached to her stapler, her phone receiver, her mouse... For the entire day of her return, I would hear "POW!" followed by a scream, followed by "Laura [my last name]!" And I would laugh as I saw little curls of black smoke rise over the wall between our cubes.

Meet Clyde
One of the other little props in my bag of tricks was a rubber roach. It was a gift from my hubby, who is also a big prankster, and it looks very realistic! I named it "Clyde."

Clyde has found himself in many fun locations - a co-worker's drawer, "crawling" up a cubical wall (courtesy of some string), in an interoffice envelope, or my personal favorite, under the receiver of a co-worker's phone! Yes, I tied a string to Clyde, and tied the other end of the string to my co-worker's phone receiver, then hid Clyde under the receiver.

When my co-worker came back to her desk, I called her phone. She answered, and Clyde "leaped" into her face! At first, I thought the joke didn't work, because it was so quite on the other end of the line. Then, I heard "uh...uh...uh..." followed by a huge scream!

R2D2 Switch-a-roo
In my old office, everyone had a small 2-drawer filing cabinet on wheels. It looked a little like R2D2 from Star Wars, so that's what everyone called it - as in "my R2D2 drawer is stuck!"

The night before one April Fool's Day, I was the last person working in the office. So switched everyone's R2D2 so that each person had a different one in their cubicales. My neighbor's R2 went to the cubical across the aisle, my screaming co-worker's R2 went to the cube next door, etc.

For those who locked their R2s at night, their key "wouldn't work" when they came in in the morning. For those with unlocked R2s, they thought their stuff had been stolen, or replaced by other people's stuff.

Confetti Bombs
For those of you with hole punchers, do NOT throw out those little paper circles! They make EXCELLENT confetti! I used to "empty" the tray on the automatic hole puncher on my floor and keep a little confetti stash at my desk for practical joke emergencies.

Some easy confetti bombs I've made involve standing a 3-ring binder in an in-the-way place on someone's desk. Then, I poured a bunch of confetti down the spine. When the person picked up the binder, the confetti went EVERYWHERE! Other confetti bombs were sent via Interoffice mail (cut a square hole in the bottom of the envelope, block the hole with a piece of paper, then pour confetti in the envelope), rigged in file cabinet drawers, and placed in balloons, which covered the floor of someone's cubical.

Sanitized For Your Protection
When the self-proclaimed germophobe went on vacation, I thought of the PERFECT welcome back gag! I went to the dollar store, and bought a couple of rolls of plastic wrap. Then, I wrapped EVERYTHING in her cubical in plastic wrap - her stapler, her tape dispenser, scissors, waste basket, her mouse, keyboard, monitor, each book, pencil, pen, file cabinet, etc. Then, I grabbed  some toilet paper, wrote "sanitized for your protection" across it in marker, then placed it on her chair. I then wrapped her entire desk chair in plastic wrap!

I should also mention that some of the wrapped items included hole-punch confetti. By the time my co-worker was done unwrapping her stuff, her little cube was FILLED with wadded plastic and confetti!

[Taurie]

Apr. 1, 2008 at 11:15 AM OMG you are crazy! I would love to see this all happen but not be on the receiving end!!

[jdoran3]

Apr. 1, 2008 at 11:19 AM Those are great!  Our department used to be similar to that from stories I hear.  Then they got in trouble when the green goo started to eat the finish off a desk and they had to cut WAY back.  I especially like to one who came back from vaction to a desk top full of sand.  Or the business trip where they charged the movie, mini bar, etc to the other persons room.  

[mommynlovinit]

Apr. 1, 2008 at 11:26 AM LOL, those are awesome!  Too bad my co-workers are all old men with no sense of humor....

[prinzesa_edith]

Apr. 1, 2008 at 11:27 AM YOUR TOO CREATIVE!

[mommiesquid]

Apr. 1, 2008 at 11:44 AM

Your so funny! I was thinking about sending my mom a message that said I was pregnant. Getting her excited and then Telling her april fools.  Thats about the only lady I can trick

 

[ZacsMom]

Apr. 1, 2008 at 2:27 PM Those are great!  I was just thinking yesterday that I was going to miss playing practical jokes on April Fools Day now that I stay at home.  The best that my "co-worker" has  come up with today is to refuse to nap.  Extremely funny on his end; not so much on mine!

[melittler]

Apr. 1, 2008 at 4:10 PM OMG those were hilraous (sp?)

[JeninJax]

Apr. 1, 2008 at 11:26 PM

You are my hero.  My family spent years terrorizing our neighbors with practical jokes.  We put their prized camaro in the local classifieds for a screaming deal, decorated the dead trees they refused to cut down with tombstones and "live" funerals.  My mother even taped centerfolds from nudie magazines to our glass sliding doors when one of our neighbors continued to get a little too close with the binoculars...

Your post brought back great memories. 

P.S.  Did I mention the plastic wrap on the toilet seats?

[Momagainx3]

Apr. 2, 2008 at 1:51 PM

I have only 2 things to say:

1) I'm glad I never worked with you. We would never get any work done trying to "out do" each other and most likely have ended up fired. I am a jedi master with a rubber band }:)

2) You had WAY to much time on your hands :P

[meanmommyx3]

Apr. 2, 2008 at 6:50 PM Oh, these are good.  I have done a few of these in my day; sanitized and confetti bombs.  I LOVE 'Misdirected'.  That is a GREAT one.  Though I never had an opportunity in the past that if would work.  I'm fileing it away for later.  This is just one of the very few things I miss working on a cube farm.