Willravel

Back in my more evil high school prank years:

- I put a pickup truck in a tree. Not by myself, of course, but I helped to make the pulley system and organized the football team. I've probably still got pics somewhere. It took 2 months to plan. This will require some explaining. Every football team seems to have a jerk. The guy who might be gay and not know it yet or the guy who has father issues. Regardless, they take their frustrations out on others. You try to be patient with them, but eventually ever last nerve has been on and it's time. This particular jackass was the proud owner of a tiny little Dakota (probably a 1995 or 1996). Stock thing, but he was proud of it to no end. After a particularly bad incodent involving a freshman and what I can only describe as the most cliche jock/nerd spectacle in history, I decided it was time to teach the guy a lesson. Nothing particularly damaging or cruel, but something that would shock him a bit. I had some experience with car pranks in the past, but I wanted to do something amazing.

My first thought was to try and get it on the ceiling of the gym. I'd seen it on some show when I was younger and always wanted to try it. I did some math, though, and realized that not only would it be VERY (read: prohibitively) expensive to get the thing up there, but the roof was almost certainly not strong enough. I had to then find another tall location to put the truck. Bleachers were out because the car wouldn't be supported either. I really wanted to put it in the girl's locker room, but the angle of entry made it impossible without having to move it down the hallway right in front of the gym teacher's lounge, which was always occupied.

There was a particularly old and large tree in the front of the school, which stood out because most of the other trees around the school were only maybe 12 years old and weren't well developed yet. It was a pine that happened to be very, very large, and that wasn't cared for when it was a sapling with regular pruning. It's base was very large, maybe 6 feet in diameter or more. Anyway, two of the lowest branches were almost on the ground and had large pieces of cement put under them in case their weight and distance to the ground would eventually make them snap. Kids regularly hung on the tree waiting for rides and such. 3 of the branches were almost right in a row and were about 3-4 feet apart at about 3 feet from the tree, which I believed to be perfect. I had someone nab his keys from his backpack in 1st period Bio, but she was caught. We tried again the following friday and managed to get them. I propped up some 6x4s I had and we drove it up into the branches so that the tires were left hanging. I made sure that we had like a dozen burlap sacks on each branch so we could avoid doing much damage.

Voilas. Pickup in tree. Yes, it was only maybe 2-3 feet off the ground, but it was a fantastic surprise.

- Banana peel in the air box of the principal. I had several really great principals when I was younger, but one was a complete tool to the over-concerned parents. He woke up in the morning worried about a lawsuit and went to bed thinking about cutting another music or art program. Anyway, a friend of mine came up with the idea of pulling a prank (I really didn't care at the time, frankly, but whatever it's high school). His idea was to cover the man's car in bologna. I asked him if he knew how much it would take to cover his car and how much it would cost to get it covered. More realistic is to pull something smaller but with equal devastation. Call it prank efficiency. My idea was to put some orange peel in his air conditioning somehow, but it would prove difficult as one would have to open up the dash to get it in there so that it would be difficult to get at. Another friend came up with the idea of the air box because he himself had some cherries from his front yard in his ("ram air", which was actually just a removed headlight leading to the airbox + crappy filter = problems) and they made a horrible smell after a short time. The problem then became the principal didn't have ghetto fabulous ram air. The tricky part, of course, would be getting the thing in there. The banana peel thing was a decision based on available munitions. I had a banana for lunch that day. Now comes the luck to end all luck: he didn't lock his car. We opened the door (sweatshirt covering hands), popped the hood, slapped it in there, closed it up, and that was that. It took the thing 3 weeks to really work the smell into the cabin where he knew something was wrong, so his window as to when it happen was too big to incriminate anyone. Fortunately for him, all one really needs to do to get rid of the smell is the remove the banana peel, clean the box, and let it run for a few weeks. Still, it was funny.

- Saran wrap on the door so that when the first person walks out, they get a big saran surprise. It has about a 45% success rate.

- Squirt guns (super soakers, usually) in the car during the summer. As we leave school, an all out assault on the bra-less. Yes, I was immature once. Very immature. Still, at least I wasn't selling drugs or something, right?

It should be noted that each of the victims deserved it, cept the saran wrap. That was just plain funny.