Pranks are the best! Until they're...not. Sometimes, a perfectly planned and executed prank can make your whole year, but not everyone is a great prankster. Some pranks go horribly wrong. Or, they go right, but the person who pulled it is just a monster. Either way, don't worry about getting pranked here. Instead, read these stories of unforgettable pranks from a safe distance.
1. Leaving You Breathless
My school had two lunch periods to accommodate our population. The first time I realized something was up was during the second lunch period. I was walking in the stairwells to class when I started coughing, along with a lot of others. It felt like I’d swallowed sawdust. I was near the science labs, so I thought it might’ve been a chemical reaction gone wrong.
The next day during lunch, the upper forum was weirdly completely deserted. As I was going upstairs, my friends and I started noticing we felt the same; like there was sawdust in our throats. When we opened the door of the stairwell to the forum, the effect increased tenfold and a teacher ushered us back into the stairwell.
We’d barely gotten to class when the entire school was evacuated. When the truth got out, I was floored. I still have no clue who did it, but it turns out that someone had gone around spraying mace, or pepper spray, or SOMETHING into the ventilation shafts during lunch. The culprit was never found, but I do want to thank him for the fifteen-minute evacuation—I got to skip science class!
2. Cans, Incognito
Back in university, my housemate used to live off of tinned food. He would have a massive variety of canned soups, curries, and veggies in his cupboards at all times. I’m talking dozens of tins, filling up the whole cupboard. One day, I carefully removed the label off of a tin of chicken soup and stuck it onto a tin of value cat food I had bought expressly for that purpose.
That evening I somehow persuaded him to eat chicken soup and he didn’t suspect anything. He picked up a tin of soup, opened it, and it was—chicken soup. "Oh well," I thought, "another time." Two weeks passed, and I’d sort of forgotten about the disguised can. Then, one night, he was in the kitchen making dinner. It finally happened, and it was glorious. We heard him say in an alarmed voice, “Hey guys...what do you think of this soup? Looks a bit funny to me! Tastes funny, too.”
At that point, I couldn’t breathe due to laughing so hard.
3. Christmas in July
One summer when my cousin was staying with us, he and I had a small “prank war.” After pranking each other got boring, we decided to put our talents together and try to prank everyone else. We put small piles of flour on each blade of the ceiling fan in the living room, just enough to not be seen from the ground. A few weeks went by and nothing happened, we largely forgot about it.
But then, the day finally came. My mom had company over. I was in the kitchen, and I heard all kinds of shouting and screaming coming from the living room. My cousin ran up to me grinning and simply said, “It’s happening.” The living room looked like it had just snowed inside. Everything was coated in a fine dusting of flour. My mother was screaming, her guests were staring in confusion, and the dogs were running around in circles. It was so amazing—until we had to clean it all up.
4. A Spooky Situation
I had a laid-back English professor in college, and she had finished telling us about this story about ghosts—she's a strong believer—or something that happened at her house. She basically felt that she was being followed by this presence. Super spooky, but I found a way to make it a whole lot spookier. I sat far away from her, so I opened up a word document and typed, "We're coming for you" over and over again, and had it sent to the in-room printer.
The printer came to life, and since we had no reason to be using the printer, her face went pale. She looks at the paper and she just said, "Oh no." At that point, I started laughing my head off. She told us off even as everyone, including herself, started laughing as well.
5. Fake Winner
I'm friends with a couple where the husband did the 'fake winner' lottery ticket thing to his wife. Then, three years later, she got the ultimate revenge: she quietly replaced the real tickets he put in her stocking with her own 'fake winner' tickets. She scratched them off, and then ripped up a $50,000 'winner' in front of him, claiming he must be playing that stupid joke on her again.
He pannicked badly, grabbed the pieces of the tickets, put them back together, saw it was a 'winner', and proceeded to freak out. He went onto Google, researched if ripped-up lottery tickets could be redeemed, and cried. She let it run to the absolute end where he went to call some number on the back and saw the "novelty" text.
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6. Cold Hearted To The Core
I'll never forget it. A buddy and I were on a double date of sorts though I was mainly wingin' it for him. The gal I was with (let's call her K) shared a heartbreaking story she thought was hilarious. In high school, K and her fellow cheerleaders invited the most ostracized girl in their class to a party as a joke. She said the girl was overjoyed and couldn't believe it. I could tell where this story was going, so I was nervous. But it just kept getting worse.
This girl was dirt poor, I should note. She ends up buying a new pair of overpriced jeans for the party and it's obvious. She shows up with some of the tags still on them because she'll have to return them the next day. The cheerleaders notice and begin to plot. The four of us are sitting at dinner as K continues to relate what happened, laughing in fits:
Someone had spilled an entire glass of red in a loveseat at the party. K immediately sits down opposite the spill and beckons the poor girl to sit down next to her to chat. She does and immediately ruins the overpriced jeans. Everyone laughs as she runs out the door in tears. K casually finished the story as a sizable lump formed in my throat.
Sometimes, it's the small, sharp cruelties that cut deepest.
7. Spider-Dan
When Dan was young he decided to prank his mom when she got home from work. After some contemplation, Dan chose to climb up a tree in the front yard and jump down near his mom when she arrived home. So she got home, parked the car, and walked up the front sidewalk. As soon as she was near Dan's tree, he jumped down right in front of her.
She screamed and whacked him pretty hard with her purse before realizing who it was! She is still scared of walking under that tree.
8. Polite Pranksters
For our high school senior prank at my boarding school, we snuck out in the middle of the night and stole the athletic director's prized golf cart. We pushed it up a hill to the school. This is where it gets GOOD. One of our friends was able to get keys from a custodian and let us in a back door. We got the golf cart into the building, and then into a science classroom, and lifted it up onto the big lab tables. We decorated it with nonsense, left it there, and locked everything up.
In the morning, everyone not in on it was completely confused about how the heck we had pulled it off. We didn't even damage anything! Even the chain that we had had to cut to get the golf cart free was replaced, with a note, on our athletic director's doorstep. The custodial staff wasn't even mad at having to take the cart out because it was so ridiculous.
I can only imagine the double-take that the science teacher must have done when he entered his classroom that day!
9. Wake-Up Call
When I was 13, I told my mom that my alarm had stopped working and asked her to wake me up in the morning. She agreed, but the thing is, she didn't realize I was a little evil genius. I stayed up until she went to bed and then snuck downstairs to the bathroom to retrieve a jar of Vaseline. I brought it back upstairs, put some Vaseline on my doorknob, and then went to sleep. The next morning, my mom woke me up like she promised—by screaming “WHAT THE...WHO DOES SOMETHING LIKE THAT!?”
10. Dating Devastation
In junior high, I got the courage to ask her out and she said, "Yes." I took her to a movie and asked her if she wanted to be boyfriend/girlfriend, and again, she said, "Yes!" She carried on like we were dating, saying things like, "I'm so happy we're finally together." The girl would walk around holding my hand in school and I was in heaven.
I couldn't have been happier at that moment in my life because I was dating my dream girl. That made the truth hurt so much more. All the popular dudes would snicker when we walked by, but I didn't care because I was too happy. A week or so went by and she was laughing when she said it was just a joke. I have never been so devastated.
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11. Why I Never Go To Office Christmas Parties
It was at a company Christmas party. We all participated in the gift exchange. Well, a fellow employee gifted fake scratch-off lotto tickets to another employee. She scratched them and legit thought she won 10k, she was screaming and crying with joy (single mom so you can imagine). She started calling her family to tell them the good news and then she's buying everyone drinks.
Eventually, the gifter came clean with the news that they were fake. And then she had a nervous breakdown and it was really sad. But then things got heated. Her brother eventually came to pick her up from the party (designated driver) and he beat the other employee who gave the gift! I never attended another Christmas party ever again.
Too much drama and something always goes wrong or people can't handle themselves and then they start hooking up with each other. It's just a rule I have now!
12. A Stone’s Throw
A group of five boys decided to throw rocks from an overpass at the cars below. But this was no joke—it was full-out reckless. They ended up paying for this "prank" for the rest of their lives. One of the rocks ended up going through a car’s windshield. The driver lost control, crashed...and didn't make it. The boys got charged with second-degree homicide.
13. Potty Problems
I saw a man tip over in a porta-potty. It was some rando looking for a laugh. The guy gets out covered in that blue gunk and other nasty stuff and fuming, proceeds to beat this guy within inches of his life with a brick. He got some incarceration time, and the other guy was hospitalized. I don't think bludgeoning your prankster is right, but I can say I understand why he did it.
14. Now That's Cruel
Ever since I can remember, my parents have let my sister and I open one present on Christmas Eve. One year, there were two GIANT boxes under the tree. I think I was 11 and my sister was 10, and these things were up to our chests. We could only imagine what was inside! When the time came for my sister and me to open our one present each, my mom threw us a curveball.
She said we could open them, but she got to pick which presents. To our surprise, she picks the two big boxes. Now, you have to understand that Christmas Eve was a big deal in my house. We would have a ton of family members over (my dad was one of nine siblings, so you get the idea). Everyone watched as my sister and I tore through the wrapping paper and ripped open the boxes.
The first thing we saw was crumpled-up newspaper, covering whatever was inside. We threw it everywhere, anxious to see what glorious present resided in such a giant box. More newspapers. It seemed to go on forever. Once we got to the bottom of the box, we stopped. My sister and I looked at each other in silence, confused as to why there was a brick duct-taped to the bottom of the box and nothing else, while my mom slithered away to laugh in the kitchen for 15 minutes.
15. Scary Anatomy
It's been years since it happened, but I'm still proud of this one. I used to work at a science tutoring center in college. One of the things we taught was anatomy. So naturally, we acquired a few skeletons and various skulls. Well I was closing one night, and I knew my co-worker was opening the next morning early, so before I locked up, I assorted ALL of the skeletons and skulls in a sort of... welcome party near the front door.
The best part was that to turn on the lights, my co-worker had to reach down and come face to face with some lifeless skeleton skull in the middle of the shady opening. Needless to say, she screamed, and it was loud enough to make our boss come to see if she was ok. I woke up to some colorful texts.
16. Hand-Picked
One summer in college, I worked in the registrar's office, registering all the incoming freshman. A professor who was a mentor to me was teaching freshman seminar and asked me to hand pick a class for her. Straight A students, high SATs, whatever. So, I did. 15 students, all named Sarah.
17. Pranking the Prankster
My friend Neil wanted to prank a mutual friend of ours who was traveling abroad at the time. While this mutual friend was in Sweden, Neil texted everyone in his phone book and told them all that this mutual friend (Chris) had West Nile Virus. (It was a well-known, media-scare disease at the time.)
Well, people went INSANE. This mutual friend Chris was waking up to hundreds of missed calls and texts asking him how he was and if he needed anything while he was in the hospital. Anyway, Neil took a quick break from swarming people’s inboxes with West-Nile-News, and I swiftly changed my contact profile in his phone to, “VERIZON WRLSS” (and deleted all of our texts).
After about an hour, I started secretly sending texts to Neil stating, “Your data usage for this month is nearing the maximum on the account.” This was back in the days before unlimited talk and text, so going over the monthly data plan meant a butt-whooping from your parents.
“Woah, I sent so many texts that Verizon said I’m using almost all may data for the month!” Neil said, and he put his phone away... “OK, I’m done for the night...” I waited about five more minutes before sending about ten messages in a row. “YOUR DATA USAGE FOR THE MONTH IS NOW AT MAXIMUM USAGE, ANY ADDITIONAL CALLS OR TEXTS WILL INCUR A NEW COST OF $10.00USD PER MESSAGE/CALL.”
Before he could read on to the second message I sent, he was already in full meltdown-mode. I just kept sending, “YOUR MONTHLY BILL HAS NOW INCREASED TO $249.99 for February.” And with every text, his eyes watered and his blood ran cold at the thought of his dad seeing this bill... all for a harmless prank... By the end of the night I had sent a running bill up to $790.00 before finally telling him it was all a joke.
His mixed look of relief, hatred, appreciation, and impressed was something I’ll never forget, and he even brought it up at his wedding ten years later.
18. The Dub-Dubs
I was in Kuwait on the way to Iraq, when our bird got delayed for three weeks. Well, Kuwait has these things called dub-dubs. A dub-dub is a lizard about the size of a small cat. They’re utterly harmless, but when they get angry, they hiss loud as heck and do this whole threat display thing. Looks really scary.
Well... being the enterprising marine that I was, I quickly set about catching them and placing them in any of the Airforce guys’ stuff I could find unattended. Backpacks, lockers, desks, toolboxes, glove compartments, sleeping bags. You name it. I must’ve planted at least 3 or 4 dozen dub-dubs in my boredom.
Some guy would go into his office, you'd hear a drawer open HIIIISSSSSSS, "OH GOD I HATE THESE THINGS SO FREAKING MUCH!" I was suspected as the dub-dub prankster, but it was immediately dismissed by the Airforce guys because, "He's a Marine, he's too stupid." Yes, yes, I am... suspect nothing and enjoy the new pet I left waiting for you in your pillowcase.
19. A Little Overcooked
We pulled a prank on my grandfather a few years ago. He had owned a smoker for several years, but he had never bothered to learn how to use it. My uncles finally convinced him to use it on a turkey in it for Thanksgiving. The cornish game hen we switched the turkey which had been burned on a grill to a bird-shaped lump of coal.
When he saw it, he flipped and accused my uncles of ruining Thanksgiving for everyone. They let him go for about 15 mins before they both broke down laughing. We still watch the video every year.
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20. Student Shenanigans
One of the seniors in my class found a way to access the school’s faculty administrative system and tried to change all of his grades to As—until someone pointed out that he’ll obviously get caught when they see that he somehow went from a 1.7 to a 4.0 GPA. Then, he just decided to just give everybody a 4.0. It resulted in absolute mayhem.
The event ended up on the news at one point because they were so sure it was some hacker that attacked the school. They tried to change it back, but most teachers never paid enough attention to keep track of who wasn’t doing so well, so they just left it. I believe the valedictorian told on him, and they tried to charge him, but eventually, the charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence.
A lot of students who were failing ended up getting to go to college and even got full rides thanks to him.
21. Testing Your Beliefs
If we asked our teacher something about the lesson that was incorrect, he would respond with, "If you believe that, then it says ‘gullible’ on the ceiling." One day, he stepped out of class for a minute and a bunch of us taped a piece of paper with "gullible" written on it on the ceiling above his desk. Then we waited…
When the time eventually came, he tried so hard to not be amused by it, but he laughed about it for a while and left it up there until the end of the school year.
22. Kansas City Shuffle
My coworkers in the Chicago office asked me to bring back a phone book and the hotel stationary from my business trip to Kansas City. They were preparing for another coworker's bachelor party. The groom was known for drinking to an extent that was considered legendary. After a night of drinking, he woke up on the morning of his wedding in a hotel room.
He checked the nightstand and found the Kansas City phone book. The desk was stocked with KC stationary. His friends had clued the front desk staff in on what was happening and convinced them to answer his room phone, "Good morning and welcome to the Kansas City Holiday Inn." It was five hours until the wedding, and he was only a couple miles from the venue, but his freak out was epic!
23. Mouse Antics
I have an extra mouse in my desk drawer at work. I have the USB plugged in to the docking station of the obnoxious guy a couple cubes away. On days where he's particularly obnoxious, I take my revenge. I'll take out the extra mouse and move it around every few minutes... he has never realized because it’s plugged into the docking station and not his laptop. He has even had the laptop replaced. Never noticed... It brings me to tears silently laughing sometimes. I have to be careful not to overdo it.
24. The Garden Gnome
I made a friend believe she was being followed by a garden gnome. For years. Many of her friends are involved plus other helpers. She shows up at a B&B in Scotland (that we'd recommended) and there was a gnome in the garden, and it looked exactly like the gnome that'd briefly turned up in her yard. Then she saw it on her way to work. Then in Provence. And Germany. She always messages us saying that it looks like the same gnome. That's because it is.
25. A Bad Call
I have no idea what radio station this was on as I was only a kid, but they used to do prank phone calls. I have little to no recollection of many of them except this one, but even as a kid I could tell it was just terribly wrong. The radio host rang up a woman and told her that he was the manager of her husband's company. He said he was very sorry to tell her that he had been involved in an accident with some heavy machinery and it had resulted in mortal injuries. Her response was heartbreaking.
As you would expect the woman was beside herself with being told her husband had just passed, she was wailing on the phone and the radio host couldn't get another word in to explain it was a joke. Then they just cut off the phone call and played a song. Even as a kid I knew it was a really stupid and cruel idea, and I'm pretty sure that was the last time they did a 'prank' phone call.
26. The Epilogue Is The Best Part...
In high school, one of the cutest girls in my grade came up to me and told me she had a crush on me and wanted to go out on a date. I was skeptical because no one had ever asked me out before, but I was growing into my body pretty well and more attractive than I was as an early teen so I just figured puberty was doing some good work for me.
We were 16 or 17 and had both just got our licenses so she said she'd meet me at the movie theatre and we'd go have dinner after the movie. I told my mom and she got all excited and helped me pick out an outfit and took pictures of me before my first ever date. I went and got a haircut and my car detailed so I’d be rolling fresh, you know.
Believe me, I was looking tasty with a fresh shave, hair edged up sharp enough to cut glass, I was dripped out before the phrase even existed. So I show up at the theatre a couple of minutes early and I’m waiting for her and after like 15 minutes I think maybe I'll call her to make sure she didn’t have an emergency come up or something (we didn’t have texting back then). Boy, was I in for the saddest revelation ever.
So I call her and she answers on speakerphone and like five other girls are all laughing at me saying things like "Hahaha he showed up" So yeah, it was all just a prank to hurt my feelings. Jokes on me I guess. I’m 29 now, so the wound has more than healed. As far as I know, the goal of the "prank" was just to see if I believed her to hurt my feelings as punishment for not being cool enough, I suppose.
I’m still not cool at all, but it works for me. Nerds are in fashion these days. Instead of going home, I ended up seeing The Dark Knight by myself and, as you all know, that movie is awesome. By the time Heath Ledger was doing his "scars" monologue, I had forgotten why I was upset.
I then had dinner for one at Red Robin which also was absolute fire. I think I got a jalapeno burger. I told the waitress I got stood up and she told me I was very handsome and I think about that compliment at least once a month. When I told mom what happened she called the girl "stupid” threatened to stab her and then bought me a PS3. As far as I know, no stabbing took place.
Last I remember, the girl in question ended up preggers and missed high school graduation. I have no idea where she is now, but hopefully, she becomes a better person and has a positive impact on those around her and her son or daughter is happy and well raised. I’ve dated plenty of people since then and I’m in a happy and healthy relationship now with proper communication and respect for each other.
The car was a 1992 Jeep Cherokee and it sucks but last I saw it, it still ran and the guy I sold it to ended up modding it out for off-roading, so even the car got a good ending.
27. Sneaky Recording
In college, at the end of the year, a club I was in had a "roast" of the outgoing seniors. My friend running the roast couldn't come up with anything for one of the guys, let's call him Ben. To drum up ideas, he called a bunch of Ben's close friends (also in the club) and asked them for things to make fun of Ben about. It went horribly wrong.
Thinking this was a confidential conversation, they proceed to lay into Ben: "the guy is seriously lame" and "honestly, when I'm talking to a girl and he is there, it is supremely awkward." My friend simply recorded that whole conversation and played it outright for Ben's section of the roast—mortifying Ben and all his friends simultaneously.
28. A Bucket Of Mean
I remember when the ALS challenge was popular I read an article about a "prank" played on a special needs high schooler. These kids told him it was just water in the bucket, but it was also urine, butts, all sorts of disgusting things. But that wasn't even the worst part. They decided to put the video all over the internet...as though the bucket wasn't enough.
29. Playing With Fire
I managed to convince my sister's ninth-grade science teacher that my sister was an amateur arsonist. I had a study hall with Mr. D the semester before she started, and one day as he wandered by, he said, "I have your sister in my class next semester, anything I should know?" I think he was just trying to make conversation.
I don't know where it came from, but I jokingly told him, "Look, whatever you heard, it was completely blown out of proportion, no charges were ever filed, there haven't been any incidents in a couple of months, and besides some smoke damage, there's been no loss of property. Maybe just don't sit her near the wastepaper, just to be safe." He laughed and continued walking. I had no idea what I had just done.
I forgot about that exchange until the parent-teacher night the next semester, when my mother came home and asked me what I had told my sister's science teacher. Apparently I played the defensive older brother act a little too well, as he spent the first three weeks of that semester with my sister under close scrutiny, and he even asked my mom about the validity of my claims.
I found out this past holiday that my sister had inadvertently helped the joke along that first week that she was in science! They had been lighting Bunsen burners, and Mr. D had asked if anyone knew how to use matches. Given that we grew up with wood heat and camping, my sister's hand naturally shot up.
30. That Must Have Sucked for Your Brother
I told my younger brother that he was insane for wasting all the air in the bags of his chips and that I couldn't believe he opened the bag so fast, wasting all the air. From this point on, for about 3 to 4 years, he would open the corner of the bag and suck the air out of the bag before opening it. This was from ages 8 through 12 by the way.
31. I’m The Cruel One Here
My brother thought he was home alone and was loudly gaming with his online friends. He was irking me so I snuck around the house and gathered supplies: my dad’s work jacket, a random creepy mask, and my brother’s BB. I positioned myself in a room on the landing next to his, scratched a bit so he’d come out of his room.
He jokingly said, “If I’m not back in five minutes call the Sherrif!” Poised at the ready, I couldn't wait for him to see me in my terrifying getup. Cue him seeing me decked out, pointing a BB at him from behind a doorway. He freaked, screamed and ran back into his room rather than down the stairs and started sobbing. I mean he thought he was dead for sure.
I thought it was hilarious at the time but it’s been about eight years and I feel nothing but guilt when I think about it. The only kind of funny thing is wondering what his friend thought was going on.
32. This Is Unhealthy
My dad told me that when he was a kid, a “friend” of his gave him a glass of lemonade—it was drain cleaner mixed with something else and my dad vomited for hours. Thankfully he survived and went on to have kids, but his vocal cords were never the same.
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33. Mall Misfortune
My so-called 'friends' had my mom drop me off at a mall and we 'hang out' until nearing my bedtime. Mind you this was back when there were pagers, no smartphones, so I asked my friends when we are going back home because my mom has talked to their mothers about someone dropping me off at home. My parents both worked.
Anyways they decided to tell me that their mom will pick them up from this door and I should go ahead of them. They left and I was a 12-year-old lost kid in a mall with no parent. Luckily one of the male students from my school was there and saw me and was like, “What’re you doing out so late?” I just broke down crying.
I just blabbered everything that happened and he told me to wait until he found a phone and paged my dad while calling his mom and telling her what happened. Needless to say, they got a frantic father going about what happened and the girls said they told their mom that I saw my uncle and left with him, so my parents has thought I was kidnapped.
But there is a happy ending: The boy who saved me and I became best of friends.
34. A Neighbor’s Revenge
A prank contest was going on in between two houses that were next to each other in San Diego, CA circa 2014. My cousin lived in one of the houses and this happened when I went to visit him a few years back. House #1 pulled a prank that led to a member in House #2 being late for his first day of work. It was collateral damage but the guy ended up getting fired for it.
The guy who lost his job came home furious. He then took a 15-pound medicine ball and painted it to look just like a soccer ball. His plan was diabolical. He tossed the medicine ball into the front yard of House #1 and waited. When he saw the guy come out of the house he yells, "Hey 'Josh' can you kick that ball back over here?"
The dude proceeds to take a running start and square up and kick the "soccer ball" with every ounce of strength he had. The poor guy went down almost immediately in tears and screaming. Ended up breaking three bones in his right foot. Just brutal.
35. Office Pranks
Gradually over the course of two weeks, I moved my coworker's computer monitors closer to the front edge of her desk. Like 1/4" per move. Until they were so close the keyboard barely fit. "Stupid small desk," she grumbled, near the end. I then moved them back, just as slowly, over a few weeks. She never caught on.
36. The Cruise Ship
I used to work for a cruise line. A passenger asked if the crew lives on the ship full time. My coworker and I jokingly explained that no, the crew leaves every night to fly back to Miami and then returns each morning. She walked away satisfied. After that cruise was over, our manager was sharing the passenger evaluations with us and was confused about one in particular. It was a woman who had stayed on deck 14 and had complained that she couldn’t sleep at night because of the noise of the crew helicopter.
Fact 1: 1,200 crew do not leave every night; we do live on the ship. Fact 2: That ship didn’t even have a helipad...Question: What was she hearing every night?
37. Looks Can Be Deceiving
For a long time, my sister was a big fan of Mini Coopers, so for Christmas, we told her she was getting a big surprise. We stacked about 100 boxes in the shape of a Mini, wrapped them, and left it outside after she had gone to bed on Christmas Eve. The next morning, we woke up, headed downstairs, and my dad handed her his car keys, saying her present was outside.
She started screaming and crying. She went outside and, for reasons unknown, attempted to hug the car. It was so sad, and yet, so glorious at the same time. She went straight through the boxes and sat for about five minutes before looking at my parents as if they had ended her bunny. I myself didn't get much that Christmas, but that memory is pure gold.
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38. Turkey Turmoil
When I was 10, my mother's family decided to come up from Guatemala so they could experience American Thanksgiving for the first time. We had about 12 people to feed. I helped my mom prepare the turkey, then went out to play with my friends a bit later. When I came back, my mom burst through my door, screaming: "COME! COME TO THE KITCHEN QUICKLY! SOMETHING HAPPENED! SOMETHING BAD!"
I panicked. I knew something happened to the turkey. I yelled at her, "DID IT CATCH ON FIRE?! OH MY GOD!" We stopped right at the entrance to the kitchen and my mom dramatically turned to me, whispering: "I...I don't know what we're going to do. We don't have a backup plan." I pushed through her and opened the oven. The foil covering the turkey was still over the dish, hiding my nightmare.
My mom stepped next to me and lifted it with a pair of tongs to unveil a baked cornish hen. I screamed bloody murder. "WHAT THE HECK, MOM?! IT WAS A 24-POUND TURKEY WHEN WE SHOVED IT IN THERE! WHAT HAPPENED?! OH MY GOD! WE DON'T HAVE ANY OTHER FOOD TO OFFER! THEY FLEW UP JUST FOR THIS! OH MY GOD, THANKSGIVING IS CANCELLED! WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO ORDER PIZZA OR SOMETHING! WHY DID YOU LET THE TURKEY SHRINK?!"
I started bawling at that point, freaked out beyond belief that my "perfect" family Thanksgiving had just been ruined. I turned away and started heading toward the balcony to tell our family the bad news when suddenly, my mom grabbed my arm and sank to the floor in a fit of laughter. I looked at her puzzled and followed her into the kitchen where she opened a bottom cupboard revealing the 24-pound turkey cooked to perfection.
She continued laughing for another 20 minutes while I just sat on the floor questioning my family's sanity. To this day, I still don't know how she didn't break character and crack up.
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39. Manipulation And Malice
When I was 17, my parents moved the family a couple of states away. I broke up with my (then) girlfriend because at 17 you don't do the long-distance thing. A week after we got settled into our new house, my (then ex) girlfriend called me and said that she was pregnant. It was plausible but unlikely as I had worn a condom.
So I believed her and rode Greyhound buses for 36 hours to go back and be with her, whatever the outcome might be. And being young and stupid, I proposed. Her parents took me in (reluctantly, which is understandable). My (then ex-ex) girlfriend and I moved into their finished basement apartment in preparation for the blessed event. But that's when things got weird...
A couple of weeks later, she refused to have anyone go with her to her "pregnancy doctor." A week later, she didn't want to have intercourse for a whole week. A week or so after that, her mom started asking why she wasn't "showing" at all, why there were no doctor bills, etc. Then it all came out: she had been lying to get me to come back and be with her.
Angry words were exchanged. We re-broke up. Oddly enough, her parents took my side and were super kind to me. They kicked my (now ex-ex-ex) girlfriend upstairs to her room for a week and let me stay in their basement while we worked things out. And when it was painfully obvious that there would be no wedding, they bought me an airline ticket home.
My dad summed it up when I got home: "Well at least you got out of mowing lawns for the summer." I hold no grudge against this girl, and I was only angry at her for a little while. We made up before my leaving and parted as friends.
40. The Year 2000
My best New Year’s was that of 1999. When I was 9, my dad and I pulled off the greatest prank in history. A few minutes before midnight, I synced up a wristwatch with the countdown on TV. My dad pointed me in the direction of the breaker which was in our garage and showed me the lever to pull which would cut all power to the house.
Now I don't know if you remember the hype, but the year 2000 was supposed to destroy all of our computers and technology sending us back to the stone ages. So, the moment grew closer as I watched the seconds tick by on my wristwatch, and it soon became apparent that I wouldn't need it, as I could hear all my relatives inside counting down 10, 9, 8... 2, 1!
I pulled the lever at the perfect timing and everything went black. The first thing I heard was from my aunt, "OH MY GOD, IT HIT! Y2K HIT!!" I was only going to leave the power out for 10 seconds or so but the lever was stuck and I couldn't get it back up for about 2 minutes, while the whole time I heard my family freaking out... then eventually they looked outside and started to wonder why our neighbors still had power...
41. The Skateboard Ramp
When my brother and I were in middle school, my brother liked to skateboard with our next-door neighbor. One day, my brother and the neighbor took the sheet of plywood from under my brother’s upper bunk bed (no one slept in the upper bunk) out of the house and started making a skateboard ramp out of it in the neighbor’s adjacent yard. My parents had explicitly told him that he wasn’t allowed to do that.
I started to craft an utterly evil plan. I hoped my brother would consider it belated payback for all the merciless teasing my brother had put me through. I ran to the upstairs window and yelled down at them, “[brother’s name], guess what?!! Mom knows EVERYTHING and she is SOOO mad.” Then I slammed the window shut and ran to the stairs and waited while watching my mom read the newspaper.
A few moments later, my brother walks in the front door looking worried and says, “Mom, I’m so sorry.” My mom (who had no idea what was going on) said, “About what?” While slowly putting the newspaper down. “For making a skateboard ramp out of the wood from the bunk bed.”
“YOU DID WHAT?!!” At that moment, a wave of shock and realization swept across my brother’s face and our eyes met. I let out the evilest little sister cackle and ran into my room. We are adults now and still laugh about it from time to time.
42. Shaking it Up
Growing up, I had a friend that wasn't exactly that bright. One year when we had to be about 12 years old, he decided for April's Fool he was going to play a prank on his family. His prank was going to be something quite simple: It involved the salt and pepper shakers on the family dining table.
He decided that he was going to move the salt from the salt shaker, and relocate it into the pepper shaker; and the pepper would be moved into the salt shaker. Basically, just a simple salt and pepper switch-a-roo. But he didn't realize one crucial thing: Both of those shakers? They were clear see-through glass.
43. Plan Backfired
My mom was a teacher and sitting in her room she heard a loud THUMP and felt a shake. She went running to see what it was and found out an explosive device had gone off in the room nearby, and a student had been caught in the blast. She comforted the student who said, "I just picked it up and it exploded." The school was closed (obviously), and there was a big investigation.
My mom was first on the scene and she was questioned about the student. It turns out the student my mom comforted was the one who set the explosive device. Because he hadn't gotten a major project done, somehow he convinced himself the best way to get out of it was to blow up all the other projects. I don't know if the student was seriously hurt but he was expelled.
This was in the late 1980s, so explosives were either very uncommon or believed uncommon. Plus, there had been a related threat earlier in the day, so when my mom heard the boom, she thought "Oh God, it went off." The bomber was the only injury and that's why the detective knew that he was the perp because it was an amateur device.
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44. Take A Seat
I was visiting a friend at his apartment when I noticed a vintage chair next to the dumpster and fell in love. I was insanely poor at the time and jumped at the opportunity to have a nice chair for my apartment. I asked my friend if I could store it at his place for the night because I couldn't fit it into my tiny beater car. He said it was fine and helped me bring it to his covered back porch.
It was one of those upholstered highback chairs with the fancy arms...like a reading chair, I guess. I returned the next day with my mother's truck and brought the chair home to clean it up. As I was scrubbing it in the back yard I noticed that it was much dirtier than I'd realized but I spent hours cleaning it anyway. The next time my friends were over I proudly showed them the chair and everyone looked super uncomfortable then burst out laughing.
It turns out that my friend's wife disliked me and convinced a bunch of the guys to urinate all over the chair the night I left it at their apartment. They thought it was hilarious that I'd spent so long cleaning it with my bare hands and how funny it was that I would put trash in my house. I didn't find it very funny and we are no longer friends.
45. Going Postal
I worked in the local library as a teen in the late 1970s, and some guy did something that angered my coworker/best friend. So, we started harvesting blow-in postcards from the magazine section. Every magazine. And hand wrote the jerk's name and address on hundreds (at least) of postcards. Free subscription? Sure! Collectible plates? Yep! Columbia records? Enjoy your free dozen Albanian opera records. Book of the month? Silver spoons? Travel offers? Cruises? Bring ‘em all on.
It took a couple months to kick in, and several more months for the tsunami to really hit. USPS stopped delivering to his house. Police were called, but the processing houses evidently didn't keep the postcards, and my prints weren't in the system yet anyway. We stopped after a Christmas break flurry... until right before school started the following summer.
One last blast of probably 50 more postcards with the most bizarre and offensive offers we could find. No one ever suspected us.
46. Catch and Release
I was working in a hot factory, and our supervisor and job planner had this enclosed cubicle with a window AC unit in the middle of the shop—it was a nice 68 degrees in there while we sweat our butts off in 95 - 110-degree Fahrenheit heat. There were always flies around; I kept grabbing the flies alive, walking into the cubicle to ask a legit question or say “I’m just cooling off” and opening my hand behind my back.
I put 14 of those guys in there in one shift. He never did catch on that I was doing it and the planner was furiously swatting around because there were so many flies in there. The supervisor was cleaning out every crevice thinking some food source was supporting life somewhere.
47. Dr. Do-Wrongs
For the senior prank at our high school, some popular guys kidnapped animals from a local petting zoo, where the animals freely roamed, and put them on the football field. The worst part is that they spray-painted them with staff names, and some had to be euthanized because of the harmful effects from the paint.
Now the animals are fenced in and there is a plaque above the enclosure explaining that our high school students are basically a bunch of jerks.
48. Breaking the Laws of Physics
I work at a wastewater treatment plant. We employ cameras to monitor things in the field that we need eyes on at all times. One of these cameras is pointed at the bed of a tractor-trailer that is used to haul bio-solids to the landfill. The video feed is a constant stream of de-watered sludge falling into the trailer.
When one section is full, an operator has to go move the trailer so the solids don't spill out all over the place and make a mess. One year for April Fools, I used the old ctrl+alt+up arrow to turn the camera feed upside down about 10 minutes before my shift was over. The person taking over for me was much older and much less tech-savvy.
When he noticed the sludge falling UP instead of down, he lost his mind! The next day I got scolded by my boss because my co-worker had had a panic attack and then contacted the after-hours emergency tech-support line to fix the cameras.
49. Vanished Into Thin Air
Back in tenth grade, our school had to take on far more students than possible thanks to some stupid "reforms." This resulted in every possible room being repurposed as classrooms. We had desks placed in the former school kitchen after they got rid of the stoves, a part of the gym was walled off, and a fair share of storage and utility rooms were packed full with benches and moveable chalkboards.
We were the one lucky class residing in a former storage room, which was basically a slightly bigger broom closet with zero natural light and a hardly-working ventilation system. That room had nothing except for one thing: built-in closets on every wall. Our class soon found some fun ways to use these closets to our advantage.
Now, about halfway through the school year, we discovered that the backs of these closets were just half-inch thick wooden plates and that those plates were the only thing separating our "classroom" from the hallway outside. We also discovered that in one of the closets, the plate was loose on one side. You could push it open from the inside and step out in the hallway.
This worked just from the inside, because once you stepped through, the panel slipped back in its original position, leaving no clue that it was a hidden exit. Naturally, one glorious day, the whole class decided to play the best prank ever. During the last two hours of the day, we would step into the closet one by one, seemingly disappearing into thin air.
We would start slowly, with those sitting nearest to the secret exit. They would wait until the teacher turned their back to the class, writing something on the chalkboard. He didn't even notice the first one vanishing. He scratched his head at the second one. Then we got bolder. The students further away also snuck out once the teacher's back was turned.
At the fourth one missing, he asked us what was going on. We, of course, acted like we knew nothing, and said the missing students called in sick the whole day and had never been in the classroom. We actually convinced him! So, we took the next step and, again, one by one, students would just up and leave every three or so minutes.
After the sixth one went missing, he finally went to the closet, ripped open the door, and of course, he found an empty, innocent closet. We acted as if we wondered about his behavior, asking him if he was looking for something. Of course, he told us that he had seen those students enter the closet.
We told him that he must be mistaken because they were sick the whole day—it was flu season. This went on for an entire hour, with him ripping open the closet door multiple times before he finally decided to go to the director to have us all suspended. By this time, there were only five or six students left in the room.
Of course, as soon as the teacher left the classroom, we contacted the now missing rest of the class, who were waiting nearby to come back immediately. So when the teacher and the director came back, they found a full classroom. It was the most hilarious and at the same time impressive prank I ever took part in. Our poker faces would have put the most seasoned poker player to shame that day.
50. Locker Laughs
In Grade 6, I opened my locker and a note from the boy I had a crush on fell out saying he liked me too. A bunch of girls in my grade were there and they were super happy for me, or I thought they were. When I went to the boy to ask him about it he said he didn’t write it and the group of girls who were there when I found the note had written it.
I turned around and sure enough, they’re laughing. But it crushed me, not that the boy didn’t like me back but because I didn’t think these girls I’d gone to school with since first grade were that mean. A couple of weeks later the group played a similar joke on one of the girls who was actually in on the prank against me, and I got a genuine apology from her after she realized how bad I must have felt.
None of the other girls ever apologized.
51. This Is Animalistic
Murdering a farmer’s cow as some sick joke. The cow was not a meat cow either. It was the farmer’s beloved pet and he fed it and played with the friendly cow every day. The farmer sued the kids who offed the cow and he won tens of thousands of dollars for emotional upset. The cow was an old bull. It was the most friendly cow I have ever seen.
It was not even neutered and had really big horns and loved sitting next to the farmer and just graze next to him. To be fair, the kids did not necessarily kill the cow, but forced the old bull to walk upstairs. Cows can walk upstairs, but their anatomy is not built for it, and it’s extremely painful for them to do so. The old bull broke its front left leg and bellowed in pain for 10 minutes.
The farmer had no choice but to shoot the pet that he has had for the last eight years right then and there on the stairs. The kids pled not guilty in court but they were forced to pay for it all. The bull was a Texas longhorn, common in some areas but rare where we both lived. It was really sad to see the bull gone from the farm.
I was neighbors with the farmer and he would always invite me over to play with the animals and feed them and everything.
52. Went Over Like A Lead Balloon
I was a huge Led Zeppelin fan growing up, and obviously, my dad knows this. One day I got a message from him saying he had just met Robert Plant in a shop and Plant had invited me to come to sit in for a studio session. I was naturally super excited and told some of my friends about it. I couldn’t wait. An hour later, my dad told me he had made it all up. He’s done worse things, but this one still cuts deep because of how mean-spirited and unnecessary it was.
53. Sick In The Head
I had a friend who faked his demise. To this day, I don't trust him when he says he had health issues, because he had us all worried sick for weeks, saying he was having heart surgery on "X" day. The day of the surgery, I woke up to find a post on his socials from his "dad" saying that he passed and that he was so scared before going under and now he wanted one last message.
It was an April Fools Day joke. I was so angry. No one was laughing cause this was not a short message it was five paragraphs long and I was crying when I got to the message. I still don't fully trust him and honestly remembering it makes me even angrier.
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54. A Tasteless Post
My father-in-law made a “prank” post on Facebook a few years ago saying both his daughters-in-law were pregnant at once and he was so excited! Except neither of us was and I had scheduled our appointment for infertility treatment three days prior. My sister-in-law had to explain to her elderly grandmother that she wasn’t pregnant and when she was, it wouldn’t be found out from a FB post.
That kind of post is always in poor taste, but to do it to someone you’re related to, and to whom you didn’t even give a heads up? Ugh.
55. Innocent Question?
I was 14 and going out to eat with my first girlfriend and my mom at Jimboys. Just like 90% of 14-year-old males, I suffered from acne pretty badly. We were eating and having a good time and out of nowhere my mom looks at my girlfriend and asks, "Do you like popping zits?" My eyes widened, she knew I was horrified by her question. My girlfriend just got quiet and her face went red.
She then proceeds to say, "What? It not like she can't see them, and you need someone to do something about them." She then laughed and then got mad no one else thought it was funny and ruined the rest of the evening. I could never understand doing something like that to my child.
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56. Delete Devastation
I remember one where a girlfriend deleted a man's like 10-15 year effort NBA2k team. The moment he found out was so sad—I'll never forget it...He sits down and buries his face in his hands and just says, "Babe, you don't understand, I cannot get that back." The girlfriend legitimately thought there was some way to undelete it.
57. Lesson Learned
A friend kept trying to steal my sushi off my plate at a sushi restaurant. So, while she wasn't looking, I stuffed it full of wasabi, put a bit of fish back on top to cover my tracks, and pretended to not be looking when she started reaching towards it. She tossed it into her mouth, started chewing down, and I just swung my head towards her to say, "You messed up."
Five minutes of coughing, muffled screaming, and copious amounts of water later, she had learned her lesson.
58. A Beautiful Marriage
I don't know what it was about my dad's digestive system, but anything he ate came out smelling bad. REALLY bad. As in, after he was in the bathroom no one else could go in there for at least a half-hour–longer if he forgot to open the window. Heaven forbid you be the one Mom sent in there to open the window when he forgot.
One night, Dad came home from work (night shift), got in bed, stuck his butt out of the covers and passed a really rancid one then pulled the covers up over his head so HE didn't have to smell it. But he didn't realize what he was in for: Mom had eaten something for supper that was just as noxious on its way out. She waited until he got his head under the covers and got a good seal on it... then let one rip.
She said he came out from under those covers like a SHOT, gagging the whole time.
59. Tied Up
In high school, there was a girl that was acting foolish and laying on top of a table that me and some friends were sitting at. Mind you, this was one of those plastic, folding tables... and we were in the Junior Reserve Officer’s Training Corps class in the rifle range having some end of the year free time.
I then took it upon myself to fulfill a lifelong dream and tie her shoelaces together. The results were better than I could've ever imagined... My JROTC instructor entered the room and told this girl to get off the table and that's when it all came together. She hoisted herself off the table with full confidence that her legs would work as they always do. Her uneven weighting of the table caused her and the table to flip over while me and the guys were just sitting there.
At first, I was the only one who knew of the shoelaces and was dying of laughter. My friends noticed and started laughing and the instructor laughed some and then told her to do push-ups for causing a commotion.
60. Dish Devil
My sister doesn't keep anything in her kitchen that she doesn't use. Extras go straight in the trash or to charity. So I started buying duplicates of things she'd gotten rid of and hiding them in the backs of cabinets. Over a year and a half, I slowly drove her insane. She had plates with concentric circles, blue on white. I found one with a slightly lighter shade of blue and she wondered if the dishwasher had faded it somehow. Then there was one with the same blue but different rings. And then one with the right blue rings but a different background shade.
She was getting very concerned. I finally confessed when she went to switch out her dishes for the seasonal, holiday ones and had more cups than she'd packed... now with saucers she hadn't had the year before.
61. The Computer Hacker
I pulled a computer prank on a college friend. I replaced a single system sound file (the click for the mouse) with a 5-minute version. It started off normal, then there were 4 minutes and 50 seconds of silence, and at the end, my masterpiece: it would play my voice screaming. Now if another system sound would play, it stopped playing the previous sound.
So, he would use his computer, and then when he would walk away, it might scream 5 minutes later. He did come to me, but it was for help since I was pretty good with computers. While he was explaining what was going on it was difficult to keep a straight face.
He tried to show me, but I would make sure to never let the time hit 5 minutes... except for right before I was going to leave. Then I pretended to be all interested. I made up a story about how it could be a nasty virus, but then said it only came from really bad and illegal adult video sites. He was mortified, but said he only looked at normal adult videos. That is when I lost it and had to come clean.
Looking back, it was a dangerous bluff. But those were more innocent times.
62. Erasing The Past
A bunch of roommates, when one went on vacation, changed the locks and plastered over the door of his room. When he came back they pretended not to know him, denied he ever lived there, and when he wanted to show them his room there was just a blank wall where the door used to be. They kept this up for three days.
63. “The Nastiest Prank I’ve Seen”
A friend of a friend in high school had her boyfriend pretend that he'd passed. He had one of his friends call her saying he had succumbed to injuries sustained in a car accident and had someone else calling up pretending to be a doctor from the hospital. She was upset. Later that day, after she kept asking the fake doctor which hospital it was so she could be there, she found out it was all prank to "see if she cared."
Horrible. Anyway, they broke up. To this day it's the nastiest prank I've seen in person.
64. Why Would Anyone Do This?
Derren Brown. English illusionist. Did a TV show a few years ago. Long story short, he convinced a young lad who had got intoxicated the night before that he had ended the life of a girl. They set him up so bad. Psychologically, it looked like they had broken this poor lad. They had set up actors, a set, and fake detectives.
They made the lad so convinced that he had ended someone’s life, that he handed himself in to the fake constable’s station and admitted to the act. I’ll never forget the one tear trickling down this kid’s face in the devastation at what he thought he had done. Then Derren Brown appears from behind a screen like “surprise!”.
It was cruel and has stuck with me for a long time.
65. A Close Call
In high school, someone made an explosive device and sneakily threw it into a metal trash can. One of my friends unknowingly walked by when it exploded and blew out his eardrum. The trash can looked like a peeled banana afterward. That person was ratted out and expelled. The kid was taken into custody afterward. Saw him 10 years later working at a car wash. All of this happened in 1997.
66. Apocalypse Now
Back in 1993, when I was 13 years old, I was sitting in my parents' 23rd-floor apartment when I came out from my room and saw them both watching a news broadcast. They both looked very serious watching this news story, so I sat down and asked them, " What's going on? " My mom calmly replied, "Asteroids...they found a big asteroid approaching Earth." I became immediately interested.
I sat down and watched as the story unfolded into a live TV news broadcast. At one point, the newscaster confirmed that the asteroid was going to hit earth and that no one was sure if something could be done in time. I should note, every 10 minutes or so, my dad would flip through the channels, saying, "I wonder if anyone else has better coverage."
I was just focused on the story. Eventually, the newscaster said that the asteroid was now visible to the naked eye, so I RAN out to the balcony as fast as I could to look for it...when I didn't see it, I ran back and kept watching. The next update was that the government had decided to shoot the asteroid, break it up, and send the bits to bounce harmlessly off the Earth's atmosphere.
My mom and dad were calmly sitting on the couch, while I on the other hand was freaking the heck out. The plan to destroy the asteroid succeeded and the TV showed bits of it blasting apart in the skies above. I was so happy that I started crying...but then, about two minutes later, another BIG news alert update flashed on the screen and they cut over to some space monitoring center...
Then it happened. About 100 asteroids showed up on the screen, each one larger than the one they just blew up... People were freaking out, and there seemed to be no hope left. I broke down in tears, completely oblivious to the fact that my parents were still sitting calmly sipping their coffee...It was only at that point that my mom decided to tell me the truth.
It was all made up, the entire news broadcast. It was actually just some fictional TV show, and it ruined me. I was absolutely furious! My dad later told me that the reason he flipped through the channels looking for other news broadcasts was so I wouldn't notice when the TV show cut to commercials!
67. Tied Up At The Moment
When I was in Grade 8 a thing called turtling and zip tying backpacks were popular. Well, one day early in the year on the bus ride home a kid decided to zip tie a 6th grader’s backpack to the leg of the chair which is welded to the floor. When he got up to leave and realized his backpack was stuck he started panicking trying to get it undone.
Eventually, he had to leave the backpack and he was stressing out saying his mom was going to freak out on him. He looked like he was about to cry.
68. Crush Is Crushed
A friend of mine had a crush on his coworker. It was sort of an open secret. His manager tried to help him, offered advice, some things to say, small gifts she might be into, etc. What no one knew at the time was that said manager and said coworker had recently started dating and hadn't told anyone yet.
So he meant it as a "prank" on his new girlfriend to be put into these awkward situations, but my friend's feelings were hurt when it all came out.
69. A Bad Birthday
A group of friends got together and one of the usuals named Eddie didn't make it. Eddie texts asking what they're up to and they sarcastically respond "celebrating your birthday without you." Lo and behold, it was coincidentally Eddie’s birthday weekend and he had no birthday plans.
Upon realizing this, the group bought and decorated a cake that read "Happy Birthday Eddie" and staged a series of fake birthday party photos to make him think they forgot to invite him to his party. To keep the prank going, they dropped off the smashed, leftover cake on his doorstep. He still hasn't found out so they keep making elaborate stories as to why they forgot to invite him.
The group later paid him back with a block of expensive cheese in his mailbox marked "Happy Birthday Eddie"
70. Mysterious Threat
I was once prank-called by someone, a classmate presumably, and they told me they were going to eradicate my best friend who was in the same class as me. It was weird, the school never figured out who it was, they just asked if my friend "had any enemies". Bro, we are eleven?
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71. Of The Same Name
When I was little, I told my parents that all I wanted was the new Kirby's Dream Land game for GameBoy. When it came time to give me presents, there was this huge one wrapped for me, and after pulling the wrapping off, I discovered that it was a Kirby vacuum cleaner box. I started freaking out, as my tiny mind began putting pieces together; meanwhile, they were acting all concerned.
They told me. "I thought you wanted a Kirby?" Of course, after a while of dying inside, they begin to laugh and tell me to open the box. Inside, after enough digging, I found the cartridge waiting at the bottom.
72. Chasing The Rainbow
Every year on St. Patrick's day, my mom dyed everything green. Green milk, green pancakes, GREEN! She said that we had to do this because the impish leprechauns would be out and about causing mayhem all day, and the only way to catch their speedy little asses was to bait them with their favorite color. We'd set traps with a dish of food set under a shoebox, propped on a string, and our gullible butts parked around the corner waiting for the telltale "flash of sparkly green."
My parents would sit and watch our shenanigans, no doubt holding back their laughter. But here's the thing—while we were waiting for the leprechauns to take the bait, there would inevitably be a loud clatter somewhere else in the house. When we ran to see what the noise was, there would be a bunch of chocolate-wrapped gold coins all over the floor. It didn't make any sense.
We lived in a very large, old, and noisy house, so we could easily hear this happening from a floor up or down. Keep in mind that every single member of our household was present and accounted for at the leprechaun baiting. The places where the coins fell were too far from us for my mother to have simply tossed them over our heads while we were distracted.
They also often fell in very stark, empty areas of the house where hidden stashes of coins or other complicated methods of coin dispersal were impossible to hide. The go-to spot seemed to be our upstairs hallway, which had all hardwood floors, sparse track lighting, absolutely no furniture, and only one entry point...which my mother would have had to pass us to use.
As we grew older, we grew more suspicious. We started to investigate our mother, all year long. Middle of August? Let's figure out where the heck mom is hiding her method of chocolate coin dispersal. These witch-hunts caused some unfortunate and untimely discoveries...like all of our baby teeth stashed in mom's nightstand (which confirmed that the tooth fairy was not real).
We also solved the riddle of the missing Victoria's Secret catalogs, but we never did figure out how the heck my mom managed to be two places at once, every St. Patrick's day. We're all in our 20s and 30s and she still refuses to tell us how she did it.
73. A Cruel Mistake
My work called my wife and told her I may have been fatally wounded in an accident. As I was getting into my car I smashed my cell phone charger, and soon lost signal. A cabbage truck had wrecked on a two-lane road, spilling hundreds of cabbages and the driver onto the road, blocking the road for hours. For some reason, they leaped to the conclusion that I was in the accident.
I finally get to a landline and call in, and everyone loses it, saying “Call your wife, we might have told her you were dead.” She bursts into tears as soon as she heard my voice. Just the goofiest thing I ever experienced.
74. Dance Deflation
I was at my first school dance in middle school. I was always a shy kid, so I was surprised when one of the popular chicks came to ask me to dance. I said no because I was shy, but I was elated that I got asked. A few minutes later I’m in the bathroom stall and a few kids come in and start talking about how they paid her 10 bucks to ask me, and if I said yes she would have just tripped me and made me look dumb.
I never went to another dance throughout middle and high school. Even prom.
75. The Oscars
My brother lives on the west coast, I live on the east coast. One night we discovered that there was about a five-minute delay for a "live" show. I saw it on broadcast TV about four minutes before he saw it on Dish satellite. During the Oscars, I called him and screamed at him to turn the Oscars show on. He asked why and I screamed at him again to just turn the show on. He said he was already watching it and I told him to keep watching it because SOMEBODY BLEW UP THE OSCARS!
I then started narrating what was on the screen and pretending like I was talking to a family member who was in the room with me. "I've never seen so much blood!" "Whose arm do you think that Harrison Ford is holding?" "Oh! That's Brad Pitt, without his arm. It's got to be his." "So. Much. Blood!"
My brother asked me what happened when it all started and I described the light and sound of a bomb going off. I could hear my brother excitedly telling his wife what they would be seeing. He asked me when it happened and I told him the last thing that was on the screen was particular part of a song and dance number.
On his TV that moment came and went and he sounded surprised and said that nothing happened.
"Yeah, I made it all up. Love you, bro."
76. Feral Cats
My parents worked nights when I was in middle school, and I stayed at my friend's house while my parents were at work. This friend loved to torment me. One day, his 13-year-old brain thought it'd be funny to pee off the deck onto the feral cats in the yard below. I told him I was going to tell his mother, went inside, and told her, "When Trevor walks in, just act disgusted."
He walked in, she told him how disappointed she was in him (having no idea what he did), to which he replied, "I swear to God mom, he's lying; I didn't pee on those cats." Watching his face as he realized I told her nothing and he just told on himself was one of the highlights of my youth.
77. Marker Maniac
During my freshman year of high school, the big craze was this fifty pack of Crayola markers. A friend of mine had a pack that she was obsessed with. She had them organized in the pack in a perfect color gradient order. So, of course, any time she left the room I’d mix her markers up so she had to fix them when she came back.
This went on for a month maybe? And one day in the study hall she leaves, and she before she leaves, she turns to me and she says, “Don’t rearrange my freaking markers” So, I didn’t. I got an even more nefarious idea. I rearranged the caps. You see, these markers were solid white apart from the caps and a little tiny nib at the other end.
She got about halfway through “fixing” them when she noticed she was holding a marker with an orange cap and a turquoise nib. I can’t tell you the joy I experienced when she looked at me and said, “You didn’t even move the markers, did you?” I laughed so hard I was asked to leave the study hall. She didn’t talk to me for two weeks. 100% worth it.
78. Clowning Around
One Christmas morning, as my brothers and I gathered around the tree, my mom excitedly pointed out one lumpy present and said, "That's the one I think you'll like most, sweetie. Open that one last." So we opened presents together, each of them amazing and just what I wanted. That made me even more excited about this mystery present waiting for me.
How could it be better than the books I got? Or my new hat? Dang, this must be one excellent gift. Finally, all the presents had been opened, and my mom was beaming with anticipation as she slid the final bundle across the rug to me. I'd never seen her this excited for me to open a present. I tore the paper and saw a glimpse of red, two sinister eyes, and cloying yellow splashed with polka dots.
My mom had given me a freaking clown statue. Not just your run-of-the-mill clown, either—it was this very horrifying clown statue that I had cringed upon viewing at my grandma's house once years ago. The very statue that had made clowns unsettling for me (even before I saw the film It). I threw it across the room and screamed as my mother howled with laughter.
She'd apparently gotten it from my grandma (who was going to throw it away) and saved it for MONTHS to give to me. That was the year I stopped trusting that crazy woman (just kidding, I love my mom and her insane sense of humor).
79. Hound's Ham
It was Christmas time, and my father and my step-mother were preparing a relatively big meal for about seven or eight people. My dad worked fifty-plus hours a week and I went to school, so both of us were pretty tired and looking forward to our holiday break. My stepmother stepped out and told my father that the ham would be done cooking in about an hour. He was to take it out of the oven if she didn't get home in time.
I could see the wheels in my father's head spinning. He let the ham cook and then proceeded to take it and hide it in the dining room, leaving the oven on to pretend it was still cooking. My dad then pretended to be asleep on the couch as my stepmother got home. When she went over to check on the ham, she started losing it, yelling, "Jeff! Where on Earth is the ham?! Did you take it out?!"
After a couple of seconds of silent giggling, he "woke up" and walked her to the dining room to show her the ham...but a fresh new horror awaited them. The dog had been chomping on for about ten minutes. That ham was completely chewed up by our American Fox Hound. We had Chinese food for Christmas dinner instead.
80. Big Y2K Scare
New Years' Eve, 1999. My whole extended family had gathered for a party. At the time, people were kind of wigging out about Y2K. Our family had not really bought into any of it except for one of my aunts who was slightly nervous. When the time came to watch the ball drop, we started the countdown...3...2...1...HAPPY—Oh no!
The TV snapped off, the whole house went black, and my aunt started to lose it. Everyone was silent except for my aunt who was freaking out, and after a few seconds, we heard some laughter coming from the garage. While my family tried to light a candle, I went to look for my father and uncle who had mysteriously gone missing during the chaos.
I later found them crouching right next to the circuit breaker, laughing their behinds off.
81. A Little Birdy Said...
When I was very little, my dad would talk in a high-pitched voice when I wasn't looking. He pretended to be a little bird and he became my friend. We would talk all the time and I would beg him to come out from where he was hiding. It started on a very long road trip to visit my grandparents and he continued to do it once we got home.
One day, I was looking under all the furniture trying to find the little bird while we talked and I spun around suddenly and caught him in mid-sentence. It was devastating.
82. Oven Surprise
This happened around the year I was born actually, but it's a famous little joke my parents played that has been talked about in my family for years. Anyway, my older brothers really wanted an NES. It was the only thing they wanted for Christmas, but my family was pretty poor and my parents told them over and over that it wasn't likely they'd get it. Still, their little hearts just refused to give up hope.
On Christmas Day, they opened their presents and...nope. No NES. My one brother was upset the most—he'd been the one most vehement about getting the system, but he was trying to be happy with what he got. After a couple of hours, my parents told him to scrub out the oven so they could get the ham going, and my brother was upset. Come on, having to do stuff? On Christmas? Couldn't they just cook it in the oven as it was?
My dad basically told him to shut up and do what he was told. So my brother glumly went over to the oven and opened it up...and there was the Nintendo, with a couple of games. He was ecstatic. He couldn't play with it until after he scrubbed the oven, though.
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83. Extended Wait
Back during the holidays in 2001, I broke my leg and was pretty miserable hobbling around school and all that. I was stuck every single day waiting in the principal's office after school waiting for a parent to pick me up because I couldn't take the bus with a cast on and crutches (and the principal was a family friend). I couldn't hang out with friends much because I was pretty immobile and they just wanted to horse around outside.
Miserable old me begged my parents to get Tony Hawk 3 for the GBA as my Hanukkah gift. They knew that I really wanted a PS2, but it was pretty expensive for just a gift, so that's why I turned to the GBA game. Come Hanukkah, I got my gift on the first day and it was Tony Hawk 3 for the PS2. I, of course, didn't have a PS2. My mom apologized profusely and said we would go out the next day and she'd let me get any other game from the store.
I got into bed that night and there was a big box under the covers when I tried to get in. Inside that box was a PS2 that my parents got me for Hanukkah and to help me be less miserable while my leg healed. I'll never forgive my parents for waiting until 10 pm to give me a new game console—the next day of school felt like the longest of my life!
84. Under The Sink
One Christmas, my mother bought my cousin the Asteroids game for Atari. We had an Atari as well and really wanted the Asteroids game too. We found out our cousin already had the game in his expansive collection and we told my parents of this. At this point in our lives, we didn't believe in Santa anymore, so my parents would wrap gifts as they were bought and torment us by leaving them under the tree, weeks before Christmas.
Leading up to the big day, we were all sitting around near the tree, trying to guess what the presents were. All three of us kids were like, "This is Asteroids" pointing to our new game. My dad was like, "How do you know? "It's not Asteroids." He got all three of us to say, "Yes it is! I'll bet you $20 it is!" Come Christmas, we opened our presents to find picture frames. Taped to them were three $20 bills...which we all had to give to my dad for losing the bet. But there was a twist.
Asteroids were wrapped and hidden under the kitchen sink.
85. The Redirect
Every Christmas, my brother and I would visually inspect the gifts under the tree to guess what they could be and see which ones belonged to who. One year, there was a big box all the way in the back that didn't have a name on it, so we asked our mom who it was for. She said, "It's for your dad. It's a multiple-piece gift set for men; you know, with a wallet and flask and stuff."
We thought it was a pretty cool idea and we let it go. Then came Christmas morning—we handed him the box excitedly, waiting to see his reaction to this gift. He started opening it, then said, "Hey, why don't you guys help me?" Sweet, more wrapping paper to shred. The paper came off and...it was a Playstation 2. We lost our minds for a good minute or so before we turned to our mom (who had a video camera in her hands) and started screaming.
"YOU LIED! YOU LIED TO US! YOU'RE A LIAR!" She thought it was hilarious. And it was. We were beyond ecstatic. I love watching that tape years later and hearing our childish, squeaky voices.
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86. No Respect For Living Things
This kid in my school had a friend over who was a compulsive liar and was trying to convince him he had super speed. To prove it he said he was going to throw the guy’s hamster as hard as he could and then go catch it before it hit the wall. Needless to say a few, seconds later the other guy is standing there shocked as his hamster was flattened against the wall and its life ended.
The kid tried to play it off but when the mother came up and saw what happened she told him to leave and that he wasn't allowed to come back. I genuinely think we need to watch out for kids like this. Kids that care more about being funny and impressing other kids than about the life of an innocent creature. Either they genuinely don't know that it's wrong to kill things or they do know but care more about themselves, which is also horrifying.
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87. A Pregnant Pause
The first time I met my brother's new girlfriend she pulled me aside and started crying. She told me that she was pregnant but my brother wasn't ready to tell anyone. She asked me to check up on him cause he was nervous. A couple of days go by and I texted her to see how she was doing and if my brother was doing okay and if they needed anything.
She asked me what I was talking about. I said the baby. She replied: "Oh, you believed me! I was only joking, I'm not pregnant! I can't believe you fell for that." This wasn't some teenager either. She was 30. Yes, I told my brother. Yes, he still ended up marrying her. Almost 10 years later I still refuse to trust her.
88. Freaking Out Little Brother
I was the one who did the prank. When we were little, we had handheld radios. I also had a dolphin plush that I drew angry eyebrows onto, and that freaked my brother out. So one day, I hid it under the blanket next to where I knew he was going to take a nap with the radio next to it. I could hardly wait to scare the wits out of him...
When he went into the room, I waited like five minutes or so and said "I SEE YOU" into my handheld and he came running out screaming for his life. My dad smashed our PlayStation apart because I did that. We were like eight or nine.
89. Nothing Sweet About This
I was In Grade 7 on Valentine’s Day and we had “candy grams” and cutesy stuff we could send to our friends. Middle schoolers are sending them to their “crushes”, they would receive these candy grams during a class period as someone came by dropping them off. You could write a little message and then who it’s from.
I got one from this guy/friend I liked and went up to him the next period and brought it up and said it was really cute and thanks! He looked a little confused but was like “No problem?” I felt kind of dumb after that and walked away, just to find out the next day that it was one of my “friends” who sent it to me and just put his name on it to make it seem like it was him.
I mean, at least he was nice enough to go along with it because he was just as confused.
90. Name Switch
I convinced a coworker that the guy she had sat next to for three years was named Jay, not Dave. They worked in different departments but sat three feet away from each other for years. I got the guy in on it. And his manager. Then later his supervisor, group manager, division manager, and the entire department.
They bought him new nameplates for his desk, changed stuff in the system, so his name would print as Jay, etc. The only thing they didn't change was his phone number and email. She thought she was going crazy, and when I finally told her, she sucker-punched me in the stomach and dropped me to my knees (she was a personal trainer in her off-hours, so she got me good).
Totally worth it, and I still laugh about it a decade later.
91. The Swim Meet
At my sister’s swim meet, I found an ice machine tucked away in a garage looking thing. So, I started collecting the ice and somehow managed to put ice in nearly everyone’s shoe at the meet. It was a wild beautiful moment of pure confusion and chaos. Everyone started freaking out and no one knew it was the little shy girl who secretly enjoyed turmoil...
92. The Proof is in the Pudding
I saw a post about switching around mayo and vanilla pudding, so I emptied out a mayo jar, cleaned it well, filled it with a few pots worth of vanilla pudding and took it to my university. My university is very lax about eating during the lectures, so I waited until midday when I was sitting in the middle of all my friends and they were all eating their lunch.
Cue me taking out the jar of "mayo" and a spoon, popping the lid and taking a big ol' spoonful with a grin. At first, only the closest ones noticed, but after the third spoon it was like everyone was frozen around me. Pin-drop silence. After the fifth spoon, someone faux-retched and the spell was broken. The looks of sheer terror and disgust was well worth the pain of eating vanilla pudding (I'm a chocolate kind of gal).
93. Women’s Health Cereal
Well, when I was 16 years old and my twin brothers were 12, one of the twins was eating all of the delicious yogurt clusters out of my “women’s health cereal” like a monster. So, I decided to become a monster. I got my mom in on it and I told her how I needed more of my “women’s health cereal” for my female development and period support, knowing my brother was next door within earshot. My mom explained what female hormones do and we went on our way.
Later I found, I legitimately terrified my brother. I caught him looking in the mirrors checking his chest. For almost a week he’d put things around his chest and I caught him googling estrogen effects. It was especially funny because he was starting puberty and his voice was cracking. It went on for about a week before my mother made me tell him.
94. Revenge is Sweet
Many years ago, I had a boss who spent most of the day on the phone, chatting to friends and avoiding work. The rest of us in the department worked very hard, but he didn't really appreciate us. I ended up having zero respect for him. On his birthday, he received a memo from the big boss (who worked in another town).
It said that from now on, phone calls were limited to one hour per day, incoming and outgoing. Any calls exceeding that time limit would be personally charged to them. I made the memo look very official; I used their letterhead, time-stamped it, etc., but down at the bottom I put a note that basically said, "Ha ha! Just kidding."
He didn't make it to the bottom. He called HQ immediately and started complaining about "today's memo." To his surprise, they hadn't received it yet! I heard him talking, so I went in and said, "Pete, you do know that was a FAKE memo, don't you?" He said "What? You can't do stuff like that!!" He was the laughingstock of the company that day.
95. Naughty List
This was my prank, but my mother was in on it. When my brother was about seven, he still believed in Santa, and I was the cool 12 year old helping my mom with keeping the presents hidden until late on Christmas Eve. We would then wrap them and set them up under the tree for the morning. Later, when all the presents were in place, we were watching a movie and I noticed by the fireplace an empty gift box, along with the leftover wrapping paper...
The next morning, my brother woke up and saw a gift in the middle of his room. Not unusual, mom had always left our stockings or something small in the room so we wouldn't wake her up at the crack of dawn. He opened it while I stood at the door poker-faced, and under the layers of tissue paper, he found a lump of coal. He also found a note, written in my best 12-year-old writing, saying something along the lines of, "You were mean to your sister this year, no presents for you."
He sat down on the rug, ashen-faced and sobbing, and refused to leave the room...which was a shame, because his stocking was outside the door. I broke after about two minutes and confessed.
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96. Staged Fright
My mom is a high school teacher. April 1st rolls around, and she decides to prank her students. In order for the prank to be successful, she included one student in her plan. The day before, she told this kid (we'll call him Brad) to take one of her old phones to class with him the next day, pull it out at some point, and "text" in class. Brad agreed to do it, and the next day, when Brad started texting with the mole phone, my mom promptly halted her lecture.
She walked up to Brad, took the phone right out of his hands, and she chucked the thing out of her second-story window. The look on the faces of her students was priceless, as my mom describes it. No one was laughing, no one was smiling; just sheer, raw horror. Always loved that one; never done a prank quite like it.
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97. Morphin' Time
When I was a kid, we went to a farm for Thanksgiving and they slaughtered our turkey. They cut the feet off, so I took them, put them inside my sweater, and grabbed them as if they were my hands. I was small enough that the ratio was such that it looked like I really did have scaly, reptilian hands. My mom was laying on the couch taking a nap, so I went up to her quietly and touched her cheek with one of my new hands.
When she started to stir, I screamed: "I'M CHANGING! I'M CHANGING! IT HURTS SO BAD!!!" She freaked the heck out and started screaming like crazy. She tried to back up against the back of the couch and ended up going over the edge of it. It took several members of my family to calm her down. Still, nobody took my new hands away.
98. Joy Ride Gone Wrong
This girl had a huge clique of friends. They would harass people they didn't like or wanted to "remove," as in they’d make them change schools. This girl would do things like find out information about you, send you fake love letters, or find out where you live and whenever the cool kids would drive by, they’d throw stuff at you. But her worst act ruined her.
One day, she convinced this freshman that they should film a fun prank-style video for YouTube. He was supposed to do a "Ghost riding the whip" thing where he was on the roof of the car while no one appeared to be at the wheel. She was driving it, and while the kid was surfing on the roof, she accelerated as fast as she could down the street, just to be mean. Meanwhile, the kid tumbled off...and fell into a coma.
She later said, "It was his fault. I mean, it was his idea after all!" No one was buying it. She was hated and only a few of her friends remained with her. I have no idea where she is now or how she is doing, and I'd like to keep it that way.
99. The Lifeguard Prank
I was a lifeguard through high school. One of my coworkers ordered Chinese food but it was her shift when her food came. I immediately got hold of her fortune cookie, carefully pulled out the fortune, printed off a replica with the exact size and logo on it and even had the numbers on the back. I carefully put the fortune in the cookie. Then I got a plate for her, put the food on it (like the nice guy that I am) and made it look presentable.
There was a priceless look on her face as she read, “Lifeguarding is not for you.”
100. A Total Hero
This happened to my kid. He was the quiet kid that people made fun of or generally ignored. Another kid was getting tormented outside near this really big hill descending to the football field. My kid stepped up and told the tormentor to please leave the other kid alone, but this just set the guy off. He mouthed off at him and took a swing at him, but that was a mistake.
Not a lot of people at school knew my kid had been taking kung fu since fifth grade. He was a brown belt at that point, and his instructor was really big on practical applications and sparring. He dodged the punch and roundhouse kicked the guy in the jaw. The other guy rolled down almost the entire embankment before stopping. The prank was on the bully.
My kid got a two-week alternate school suspension for it. His mother gave him a lecture. I bought him a PS4.
101. Show Within a Show
This was my dad’s story, but he and my uncle look EXACTLY alike, to the point where their wives of two plus decades have confused them. When they were in college, my dad was the lead in a show and my uncle came to see it opening night. My uncle saw his chance and—while my dad was in the bathroom—burst through the curtains and said, “That’s it! I’ve had it! I can’t work with these people anymore” and stormed off.
The director was basically losing his mind because nobody knew that my dad had a twin until my dad came back and—once he saw everyone’s faces—basically said, "Yeah, my twin is coming tonight. He messed with y’all, right?”
