Wednesday, July 2, 2008

April's Fools Day...Everyday

In my experience, practical jokes are a never-ending business of life. Practical jokes follow us wherever we go. High school, college, even work. 

At my high school senior pranks were serious business. We made the freshman dress up like babies (think pacifiers and booties - yes, i mean serious). We took every single desk in the right wing of the school outside before the first day of school and made the sophomores and juniors carry them back in. And a few freshman even had to kiss our Birkenstock-clad feet. Ok, so it wasn't exactly Dazed and Confused, but in high school you could get away with things like that and it was seen as funny (mainly because it was supervised). 

College followed a similar pattern. The most tame being the time our guy friends disconnected our air conditioning unit and hid it in their house which we girls followed by a retaliation of "kidnapping" a reluctant subject (just an fyi: pantyhose over your face disguises nothing) and stealing all of their knick knacks, posters, and clothes. Let's just say our college pranks almost lost us some friends. 

Work has turned into my new playground of practical jokes. My gay, 45-year-old, and Cuban best friend at work was the king of making Power Point presentations during our Biggest Loser competition. These Power Points painted the competition as satanical creatures eating Burger King. But we have to keep in mind that my gay bff did win the competition so he must have been doing something right. 

But my favorite practical joke was the time that a few girls in the office foil-papered everything in one of our bosses office - his stapler, his mugs, his plants. It was so Office-esque that it got me thinking. Why stop practical joke wars in high school or college? Work is a great place to have (responsible) practical joke fun. To follow are my pick for the top four practical jokes that should be done by all people at some point during their office career (depending of course on the cool factor of their boss). 

1. Jell-O was made infamous by my favorite Working Boy Jim on The Office, which is why one day I will go to the store, buy a "World's Best Boss" mug, and encase it in Jell-O. I will then place it on my boss's desk and wait for hilarity to ensue. Or to get fired.


2. As I was googling "office pranks" at work the other day (come on, who doesn't?), I ran across this little number. Post-its covering every single nook and cranny of a corner office! How great is that. Sure, it might take a few extra hours but it would be so. worth. it. 


3. This might best the easiest of the four, but sure would make me smile. Blow up a ton of balloons and fill the cubicle with them. The plus side to this one is an easy clean-up.


4. And my favorite office prank has to be making all your co-worker's desk supplies into cardboard cut-outs. Hilarious. Simply hilarious. 


Excuse me while I go buy some Jell-O. 

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've often wondered how one actually encases office supplies in Jello...let me know if you have any tips, it sounds fun.

Baby bonnets and Birkenstocks? Wow, sounds a tad lame now. But it was an absolute blast, wasn't it? Feeling that ridiculous power go to our heads as we made the underclassmen march all the way down the long ravine-lined driveway to school. We were geniuses, I think.

~*~Snappz~*~ said...

How friggin hilarious! My fave has gotta be the cardboard one too, so simple and yet so funny. Love it!

Anonymous said...

oh man, pleease do these.

I'd love to do some at work, but responsible practical jokes become a little more complicated with kids who have NO IDEA where to draw the line.

and who think that things never ever ever stop being funny.

Anonymous said...

Our pranks at university were focused on one guy alone (don't feel sorry for him!).... He would basically chase anything was in a skirt (yes, anything..) & was a major pain in the A** around our group of female friends...

One of our pranks involved scanning money and strategically placing it various different parts of the university building. The catch ofcourse was that the scanned money was blank on one side. We then sent him 10 anonymous emails, each of which revealed a new location.... he visited all 10 of them!

He also later revealed that he tried to respond to the anonymous emails, but they would keep bouncing back. Such could be the mind of a first year Software Engineering student! 5 years after he started a 3 year course, he finally graduated at some point!

More stories about this guy if there is an audience... and if you are brave.... maybe you can add him to your list of Facebook friends! :D

Anonymous said...

Our office has an unofficial bowling/drinking outing every Thursday night....I didn't go on my first week and when I came in on Friday my keyboard keys had been swapped out to read "YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN BOWLING" lol

Keeping the keys from defunct keyboards = a good thing.

Lauren said...

I would actually love to have my office filled with balloons. How fun is that?!

We sometimes log into one anothers computers and change background. Kind of embarrassing, but very awesome. I think office pranks should definitely happen more often.

Susel said...

I really dont know if my coworkers would appreciate any of these jokes hahaha...i should try it...

Katelin said...

okay those are awesome. i love the post it one, that is hilarious. so is the cardboard one, love it.

Anonymous said...

I just created a cool list of the Museum of Hoaxes' Top 50 April Fools Day Jokes of all time on blist. Check it out!

http://app.blist.com/#/blist/asimmons/The-Museum
-of-Hoaxes-Top-50-April-Fools-Jokes-of-ALL-TIME

Bayjb said...

Holy shit that stuff is hilarious. I love the Post-its and the balloons. Girls I would with would freak out. We did wrap absolutely everything in foil on an admin's desk because she loved Chipotle so much. She thought it was hilarious.

Andrea said...

I actually post-ited someone's office once. Except, I wrote jokes on every post it, making it even more funny when he forced me to help clean it up.

Anonymous said...

Hi! Thanks for friending me on 20sb!
I love your post. Actually, we just pulled the foil joke last week (everyone goes on vacation for July 4th!) and we were planning on the balloons, but we couldn't find a helium tank.
Also, in high school someone post-it-ed (?) someone's car. They even took the time to put smiley faces on each note!

Anonymous said...

Lol, i love the post-it and the cardboard cutouts ones!

natasha said...

A couple years ago a bunch of co-workers got together and popcorned a bosses desk. he had a corner cube so we had to use saran wrap to cover the opening. Next every nook & cranny was packed with popcorn. I mean, we are talking drawres and everything! I happened to sit right next to his desk so when he cam in the next morning and there was popcorn up to the top I about fell out of my chair laughing. So did he. He was such a great sport about the whole thing that he remained a target until he moved back home =0)

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