Pranks R Us

Ray Gapp's birthday is today.  I sent him a birthday wish via Facebook.  Don't know if Ray ever reads his Facebook stuff, but if he does, he might smile.

Of course, I'm smiling, thinking of Ray Gapp and the day Ruth Straley CUT HIS TIE RIGHT OFF.

I don't know her motive, but I know that Ray was taken aback, and he had to wear a short tie for the rest of his teaching day at Sandpoint High.

Yup, Ruth was the school secretary at the time, and Ray was teaching imps like me how to type. 

"Leave your machines alone, please. Leave your machines alone."  

That was Ray's daily mantra, as we never seemed to remember to "leave our machines alone" while he was reading out loud from the typing manual for the next "fjf-space" drill. 

I think Ray must have used up Ruth's patience that day in the office, so she picked up a long pair of scissors and snipped away as he bent over the desk in her face.

Now, that was a good up close and personal prank, especially for everyone who witnessed it and for everyone who heard about it. 

I don't know what Ray thought, but he survived.  And, so did Ruth.

I've been reading the Steve Jobs book and have decided that, brains aside, Steve and I may have shared at least a few kindred spirits bouncing back and forth.

I appreciate a good prank and have even pulled a few myself over the years, mainly on the telephone.

But that damn Steve Jobs and his nerdy techno-genius crowd with all their telephone advancements have ruined all the good ol' ways we could make prank calls, while the party at the other end had no idea.

I'm sure that my friend Merriam Merriman has Caller ID these days and would no longer pick up the phone if she saw my telephone number appearing in the window. 

These days, she'd just let it ring, figuring that more than likely Marianne may be disguising her voice and trying to sell Merriam vacuum cleaners or chastising her for remarks made about the Stanford University president. 

Yeah, there's truth to both stories.  I haven't teased Merriam for a long time, but I will tell you she was a good victim.  

For some reason, I could even hold my own by not even giggling in the middle of my impish spiels to Merriam. 

Pranks can work well for boring speakers too.

My friends and I all loved it the time one of my teaching colleagues got up during halftime of a painfully boring speaker's presentation, marched to the electrical closet and pushed the breaker button connected to the sound system.

When the microphone and overhead projector would not work after halftime, our colleague sat in the crowd poker-faced while the speaker endured a visible meltdown, bringing the presentation to a speedy close.

"Oh darn," we all thought as we were dismissed early, headed to our cars and learned who the "culprit turned hero" happened to be.

I had another friend who brought a whoopee cushion to a faculty meeting.  The principal never did figure out why we all seemed so jovial as he conducted the meeting, but the victim did AND there were mild threats of death to the perpetrator afterward.

We all loved it. 

So, you can imagine how much I loved the story in the Jobs book about the pocket remote that could screw up television signals.  He and his buddy Steve Wozniak devised it and made a practice of walking into rooms where people were watching TV.

They'd push the button and picture would turn to static.  Someone would get up and bang on the TV.  At that instant, one of the Steve's would push the button that cleared up the screen.

After a series of these incidents in one setting, they were amazed at the control they had over the viewing crowd and the crazy antics people would employ to get the television working again----everything from pounding the set to dancing on one foot to get the TV to work. 

Now, I would have definitely enjoyed being there, as long as I wasn't the victim.

Ever since the years of "Candid Camera" and because of my own fetish for pranks, I try to remain vigilant against victimhood when situations don't appear as they should.

One of the more common settings is the produce department at any grocery store.  

Ya know those plastic bags for tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.?  Well, sometimes they refuse to open.

After trying both ends and having no luck, I've been known to survey the room, just to check and see if there's a camera filming my every move.

Seeing none, I usually go back to fingering and massaging the bag until it opens. 

Of course, my extra vigilance in the produce department may stem from the day when I bought a clump of bananas at the old IGA.  I selected the clumb because it had the biggest, fattest banana I had ever seen.

We were going on a picnic that afternoon, and I'd figured that banana would be mine. 

When we sat down to eat, I wasted no time grabbing the banana clump to get that prime piece of fruit.

It would not separate from the rest.  I pulled and pulled, only to discover that the banana was attached to the rest of the clump with tiny, thin wire.

It was rubber and fruitless. 

I figured there were a few morals to be had in that prank:  fat bananas will fool any fool. 

Happy Monday.