Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Pranks For The Memories

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Columbus teenager who was throwing eggs at cars as part of a late-night prank was fatally shot, police said Sunday.

As a teenager, I (and my friends) often resorted to "pranks" as a way of entertaining ourselves. Living in a summer resort as we did, winters meant the place turned into a ghost town. No more tourists to laugh at, no more summer jobs, no more hustle and bustle.

Our pranks consisted of things like driving our cars on the boardwalk, laying down in the center of the highway and drawing chalk outlines around each other, tp'ing houses, abducting construction cones, that sort of thing. Pretty harmless as far as I'm concerned. We never egged, because that just seemed too mean, and we never had any run-ins with the law, but in this less temperate climate and news items like the one above, I'm wondering if such antics are no longer tolerated. Granted, I don't think the police intended to kill the teenager in the above news story, but it certainly sheds a different light, don't you think? OKAY, MY MISTAKE. I READ TOO FAST. THE POLICE DIDN'T SHOOT HIM, SOMEONE ELSE DID. THANKS, CARA, FOR POINTING THAT OUT.

Did you pull pranks as a kid? What did you do?

24 comments:

  1. I remember tp'ing two cars together as retribution for my house bein tp'd. We mummified those boys' cars.

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  2. I was such a boring kid. The most I did was a few prank phone calls but that died after *69. Bummer.

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  3. Wow. That's sad. :( Egging a car is not cool, though--mine's been egged a couple of times when I left it parked on the street overnight.

    The worst pranking I did was prank phone calls, too...before caller ID and all that jazz. haha

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  4. We tp'd houses and cars - I knew someone who got his car Crisco'd once. That wasn't cool - ruined the paint job!

    Kristen I gave you a special little somethin' on my blog:

    http://karenwritesromance.com/blog/2008/09/02/a-blog-award-for-me/

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  5. I helped Oreo someone's white Monte Carlo. If you're not familiar with it, you undo the cookie and afix the creamy center to the car. There's really no way to get it off other than by hand. Going through a car wash only renders the cookies wet and nasty and you can imagine what it looks like after that.

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  6. Gwen - Did you tp the two cars into one or at the same time?

    Kwana - I was too chicken to prank call. lol

    Rhonda - I had the fear of the Sicilian put into me by my father about egging cars. I wasn't about to go there.

    Karen - I never heard of using Crisco. Was it butter flavored?

    Marley - The oreo thing is new to me too. Unfortunately, I like the sound of it. Fortunately, I like oreos too much to waste them. lol

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  7. K--we tp'd the cars together into one mummified car. However, to make it even more challenging, we alternated: a couple times wrapped together, then a couple times aroun one car, then togther, then around the other car.

    The boys lived at the local dorm, I don't think they ever parked next to each other again.

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  8. did lots of tp-ing of houses and forking of yards. Oh and occasionally, we'd sneak into my friend's brother's bathroom and saran wrap the toilet so he'd spray himself in the morning. That was always a big hit.

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  9. Mel - Forking? Splain please.

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  10. *sputtering* You don't know what forking is????

    Okay, you get loads of the plastic forks (hundreds and hundreds) and you and a couple of friends spend an hour or so in the dead sticking the forks prongs first into the front yard. It's a hoot. And the ONLY way to clean it up is to pick them up one by one.

    Best. Prank. Ever.

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  11. that would be 'in the dead of night' not sure where the rest of that sentence went...

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  12. thanks for clearing up the dead of the night stuff...cuz really forking takes on a new meaning when sticking them in the dead.

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  13. Yes, Mel, thanks for the explanation. In the dead sounds like something else entirely.

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  14. Sadly I still pull pranks. Later this week I'm going to blog about what I consider my best prank ever. I'll let you know when I post it.

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  15. we did the TPing, the ding dong ditching, the prank calls, the forking... never did the oreo or egging though.

    But goodlawd, it doesn't deserve being SHOT!!

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  16. Granted, I don't think the police intended to kill the teenager in the above news story

    Kristen, are you quite sure it was the police who shot him? Because I thought it was an unidentified assailant....

    Cara

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  17. Cara, you're right. I edited the post to reflect that.

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  18. I was alsways a goody two-shoes and never pranked. But I always enjoyed hearing about what others did.

    The closest I got was when I was going through my divorce and some friends wanted to put dry mashed potato buds on my soon to be ex's lawn just before a rain storm. The dehydrated buds react as expected and it's quite the mess. Loved the idea, but nixed it. I'm a chicken.

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  19. Barbara...I am so going to do that to someone.

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  20. Anonymous3:49 PM

    Forking - Great visual

    Yes, I did pranks. Sometimes, they got a little out of hand! Egging? yep. Rolling houses? Yep. Are you guys familiar with Bill Clinton's blue convertible mustang? I have a picture of me standing between it and my boyfriend's car having rolled both of them in toilet paper (his brother Roger was driving it then)

    The Oreo Prank - That's a new one.

    Prank phone calls...oh yeah.

    put real estate "for sale" signs in the front yard of the high school.

    but my BIL is a fireman, and they prank each other all the time. It's always simple things like the fireman with the new car (that was so much cooler than anyone else's car, according to him). The guys would move the side mirror on the passenger side. This guy kept taking the car back to the dealership complaining that the mirror wouldn't stay put and needed to be tightened! LOL

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  21. Anonymous3:50 PM

    I'm like Barbara, no pranks here.

    My boyfriend in college peed in my Listerine bottle after we discovered my roommate's boyfriend guzzling MY LISTERINE straight from the bottle. I told him to stop twice and he didn't. The third time might not have been the charm for him but it was for me.

    I still smile when I think about that one.

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  22. Hmm, let's see.

    My friend and I used to order pizzas to be delivered for neighbors we didn't like. I know, not cool, but we were young. Okay, lame excuse, because we definitely knew better, lol.

    And then once, after one of my friends had her heart broken, we sprayed silly string and shaving cream all over her ex's car. It rained that night, though, so most of the mess was likely gone by morning! It made her feel better though :)

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  23. We used to steal pumpkins but they had to be "unstealable." And we used to climb trees or fences and walk on people's roofs.

    My favorite? Buying a universal remote and going to people's houses at night... program it through the window and keep changing the channel or turning it on and off while the person inside wiggs.

    We painted the Panther mascot for a nearby school/rival Marshfield green and then painted green pawprints all over the town one year.

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  24. One of my close friends didn't speak to me for a week when her teenager pulled one of my nastiest but simplest ones at the computer lab at school.

    Take a screen capture of the desktop.

    Set that image as the screen saver, and set it to enable after 1 minute.

    Password protect the screen saver.

    Sit back and watch as tech department wiggs, uninstalls windows, and loses everything when all they need to do is disable password protection.

    Run.

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