Favorite practical jokes

[Dave Gallaher]

Everybody can do this. Stop just after the lottery numbers are drawn and buy the numbers that were drawn. Take the ticket to work and ask someone to check your numbers the next day or leave it on the table after breakfast for your wife to check. Most people check last nights numbers and never check the ticket for the draw date. we have done this to the new guy at work many times, it only gets better with time. Classic joke. No harm, No foul. If anyone does this please PM with results, I love this stuff.

[Steve Bigelow]

On the computer network cable, a little bit of clear tape on the contacts, then plug it back into the wall (or PC). Can do the same thing with USB connectors.

On some PCs with onboard graphics, doing a <CTRL><ALT><DOWN> (all at the same time) will invert the screen. <CTRL><ALT><LEFT> will just rotate it 90 degrees.

Tape down the on-hook button on the phone, then call. When they answer, it'll keep on ringing.

Get security to re-key the desk locks while they are on vacation. (Submitting a request from their open computer is the best!).

Swap all the marker caps around on the whiteboard markers.

Leave an Out of Office notice on the whiteboard. An "inappropriate" medical reason is always funnier.

[John A langley]

Stick a 16 penny box nail in the male end of the air coupling on a nail gun. Snap the female end back over it and it will drive them crazy why they are not getting air to their gun.

[John A langley]

Alex - Want to really get in trouble with your wife - spread some Saran Wrap over the porcelain part of your toilet and put the seat down. She may hurt you.

[John A langley]

This one got me in a whole lot of trouble and my wife has never forgiven me. Late one night after traveling by car all day, we were checking into our room at a motel in Alamegordo NM. Another couple was unlocking the door to the room next to ours. In a voice easily heard by the other couple I turned to my wife and said........."What did you say your name is, honey?"

[glenn bradley]

Having worked in IT since it was MIS, anyone who went on vacation had their cubicle wrapped in plastic and filled with greenbar paper. If they were lucky enough to have an office, we would reverse the furniture in their absence.

[Jim Rimmer]

This one got me in a whole lot of trouble and my wife has never forgiven me. Late one night after traveling by car all day, we were checking into our room at a motel in Alamegordo NM. Another couple was unlocking the door to the room next to ours. In a voice easily heard by the other couple I turned to my wife and said........."What did you say your name is, honey?"

Back in my early wedded days, and when I still fished, I thought it would be hilarious to put some of the rubber worms under my wife's pillow. She went to bed and ran her hand under the pillow as usual. Although the result was quite funny (in hindsight) I have never played a practical joke on her since.

[John A langley]

Hey Jim - Our boys did that to my wife with a REAL LIVE bullfrog. And now all I have to do is walk into the house with my hands cupped and she freaks out. Permanently scarred and it has been 30 years. The boys are now in their 40's and they still go into convulsions with laughter about the incident. In an instant she was in the middle of the front yard in her baby-doll PJ's screaming like a banchee. The neighbor guy liked it.

[Mitchell Andrus]

That reminded me.... when we were dating I planted some dog poop (made of brownie mix and flour) on the sidewalk of her apt as I arrived to take her out on a date.

I noticed it, picked it up.... tossed some in the air, bit off a hunk and threw a bit at her.

She married me anyway... I tried to warn her.
.

[Scott T Smith]

One of my favorite wedding tricks was to wire the horn to the brake light switch on the honeymoon car. I did that to my brother, turns out that he got caught behind a state trooper in heavy traffic on his way to the airport from the reception. It took his wife about 10 years to forgive me...

Another good one is to enter someones voice number into a fax machine and send them a fax. Most machines keep redialing the number if the fax doesn't go through...

I once took out an ad on a friends behalf about a week after Christmas. The add stated "Wanted - used Christmas trees. Top Dollar paid!" and listed his phone number. It's amazing how many people read the "Wanted" Section of the classifieds!

Another fun automotive practical joke is to run a wire from a spark plug (strip off an inch or so of insulation and capture the wire between the plug and the boot), and then run the wire to the crack between the seat back and the drivers seat. Strip off a few inches of the wire. The best thing about this trick is that the driver will only get shocked when they touch something that's grounded. Just holding onto the steering wheel won't shock them, but if they touch a radio knob (old fashioned knobs) they will get a jolt. I did that to one guy and then watched him try to convince the mechanic that there was something wrong with the radio. The mechanic sat in the the passenger seat to diagnose the problem, and kept touching the radio, and of course - no shock. Since the driver was sitting on the wire, every time he touched the knob he'd get juiced!

[Bonnie Campbell]

Years ago, when I wrote snail mail letters.... My sister and I would write each other once a week. Well, ya know how boring some weeks can be, I had nothing to write. So I sent her a 'letter' 4 pages long in 'invisible ink'. In actuality I just stuck four blank sheets of paper in the envelope and then a little note on how to get the 'ink' to re-appear. The process was to wet the paper good and then carefully put it in the freezer. Once frozen the writing would appear. She wasn't happy with THAT letter

[Jim Koepke]

An engineer I worked with at one time was a few bricks short of a load. His name was Dave and I had a clip from the movie 2000 of the computer saying, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." We put that on his computer to run at shutdown with a long time wasting loop to follow.

This also makes me wonder about the timing of this since Friday with James Thurber was a reading from, Shake Hands With Birdey Doggett. The story was about a perpetual practical joker who among other things had a wax hand that he would use to shake hands with people who would be alarmed when his hand fell off. He would also go to Grand Central Station with one roller skate and place it on the foot of someone he found napping while waiting for a train.

The reading can be seen here after a 30 second commercial:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/...36428#37936428

jim

[Jim Koepke]

This is not a real practical joke, but it was fun anyway. Besides, a lot of times it made my job easier. When I was a field service technician, I had a joke hammer. It made the sound of breaking glass when you tapped something. I kept it in my tool bag. When a customer was particularly upset, I would take that out and say, "didn't the dispatcher tell you to just tap it lightly." Then I would tap it with the hammer and they would hear the broken glass sound and have a shocked look on their face and I would have a similar look and say, "Eeeww, that sounds expensive." Then I would tap my head and they would get the joke and start laughing. Most often, they would want to borrow the hammer so they could go have fun with their co-workers. At least they would leave me alone to do my job and not be breathing down my neck. It sure could defuse those "hostile" situations.

jim

[Dave Beauchesne]

I'll try to keep this short. This happened 30 years ago.

A retired friend of mine had a neighbor who was retired as well. The neighbor's next door neighbor bought a new truck and was very proud of his new acquisition. The retiree asked several questions after kicking the tires, and the new owner was quick to point out the fuel economy was best in class.

So, the retiree had a wicked sense of humour. The new truck was parked in the open carport beside him. He proceeded to siphon 2 - 3 gallons of fuel out of the tank every couple days, and store the fuel in jerry cans in his garage. A non-chalant query along the lines of ' how's the new truck ' after about a month or so drew an angry response ' piece of $#%&, using fuel like there is no tomorrow ' etc.

He took it back to the dealership a couple times, they did this and that, said it wasn't broken in yet, etc. The old retiree kept up his raids on the fuel tank.

Here is the best part. Once he had filled up all his fuel cans, he started reversing his gag - adding the fuel back into the truck. Had the truck owner going nuts. He finally 'fessed up - the guy was upset, but took it in stride.

Now that is a doozie !!

Dave Beauchesne

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Working air traffic control maintenance at NAS Meridian, MS in the early '70s. The Navy for the first time allowed enlisted people from the Phillipines be something other than Stewards to the Officers. Our shop got a really nice guy who had a EE degree from a university in the Philllipines. He was given the chore of maintaining the weather radar that nobody else wanted to work on.

It went down and he troubleshot it. He, embarrassed, came over and asked for help and I went with him. I confirmed his diagnosis of a bad magnetron and he placed one on order. It arrived a few days later; he and I discussed what alignments needed to be performed after he installed it and he went on his merry way. He worked long and hard and finally walked into the shop walking 3' feet off the ground due to his obvious success. His smile was blinding everyone. If you asked he, uncharacterstically, with a lot of excitement told you of his first "fix".

There was a large number of storage cabinets that divided the shop into two large areas. One of the guys walked to the other side of the shop unseen and using one phone called the other extension in our shop. When it was answered he asked for Ed and when Ed got on the phone, he was told "This is Lt. Smith in the Operations Weather Office and your Damned radar is down again." There was a streak in enlisted blues that flew out of the door of our shop headed for the weather office at the other end of the Operations Building. About 1/2 way down the hall, Ed realized and recognized the Texican accent of one our other enlisted men. When he walked back into the shop, we were all on the floor gasping for air.