Blast from the past—My favorite prank

I do not believe in April Fool's Day. Why set aside only one day for pranks when one can achieve more effective results by playing pranks when the situation naturally calls for them? Not only is the subject less likely to see the prank coming, but I feel that putting all of the pressure on one particular day is stifling to creativity. The one exception I'll give is to large companies and organizations that really couldn't justify a prank any other time of the year. Playing around on April Fool's Day is generally good for their image, but on any other day, fooling with the public might look tasteless.

I don't play a lot of pranks, and that is for two very good reasons: (1) I am a horrible liar and most pranks require some sort of deception, and (2) Even if I can tell a convincing lie, I can't maintain a straight face for long. If a prank doesn't require me actually interacting with the subject (such as signing up a boy for free tampon samples online), then I'm more likely to be successful.

However, in high school, I did play a prank that involved direct interaction with the victim subject, and as I recall, I actually pulled it off. I was just going to copy and paste my Xanga account of the prank, however, due to not wanting to give out too much information at the time, it's a bit difficult to decipher. Now that is has been several years since the situation occurred, I believe I can tell the story with a little more clarity; however, I will still use fake names in order to protect the identity of those involved.

Thursday, November 17, 2005—My favorite prank

It was the fall of my senior year of high school. I had a little crush on a boy in one of my classes. Actually, I probably had little crushes on boys in most/all of my classes. However, this story involves one boy in particular. In order to protect his identity, I will call him Frank.

I didn't have a major crush on Frank—just a little one. I thought he was kinda cute, but I wasn't exactly talking to all my female friends about it. Not a major crush, but just enough of one to be really, really annoyed/shocked when he came out to me on Myspace. This was the first time that anyone who was in the closet had come out to me, and I'll admit, due to my selfish interest in this kid/this kid's good looks, I didn't respond very well. I was young, he was cute... it happens.

Frank and I had a mutual friend. I'll call him William. On the morning of this particular Thursday, William had printed out an instant messenger conversation that he and Frank had had the evening before. The two of them had discussed Frank's sexuality and how another boy (I'll call him Hayden) was a jerk and how they were glad he didn't know Frank was gay. However, this conversation also included some not-so-nice remarks about me (presumably related to my little crush on Frank). When I read it, my response in my head was, "Wow. Really William? You didn't have the brains to edit this before giving it to me to read?" So I decided to play a little prank on William to teach him a lesson, especially since I didn't appreciate the things he had said to Frank about me.

That day, I had plans to eat lunch with William and two other friends. I let the two other friends in on the prank I was about to play, so they could help me be convincing.

I'm not sure whether or not William knew that I knew Hayden when he handed me the printed conversation. I did not know Hayden well, but he and I did have a class together. So I used that to my advantage.

At lunch, William asked me about the printed conversation—he wanted me to give it back to him after I had read it, in order to make sure the sensitive information didn't get into the wrong hands. I reached into my hoodie pocket and said, "Oh yeah, I have it right here!... oh crap... these are the notes I thought I gave Hayden first period... that must mean I gave him the conversation instead!" After I "checked" my folders to make sure I didn't have the conversation, William was convinced that I had indeed handed Hayden the conversation instead of the class notes. My friends contributed some "Oh no! This is bad", etc to the conversation, and William was freaking out, saying things like, "Oh my gosh... the WHOLE school's going to know about Frank and Hayden's going to hate me!!!" We kept it up for about 20 minutes, but then the lunch period was almost over and I had to tell William the truth, so that he wouldn't tell Frank that Hayden had been given the conversation... since that actually didn't happen, and this was a prank on William, not Frank. (The notes were real, but the situation where I needed to give them to Hayden was made up). William was a little mad when he found out, but he took it pretty well. I don't know if he learned his lesson, but it's one of those things we laugh about now, so it's all good.




This is one of my favorite pranks I've played, and one of the most memorable, since I actually fooled "William" into believing me... and kept it up for most of the lunch period. The moral of the story is... don't get on my bad side. Or else. *Insert evil laughter, thunder, and lightning here*