SUNDAY FUNDAY APRIL 3, 2022

SUNDAY FUNDAY - APRIL 3, 2022 PRANKS FROM APRIL FOOL'S DAY

WARM-UP

I like pranks - safe ones - like puns - “groaners”. 

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SOME PRANKS:

Offer someone chocolate, and as they’re eating it start pointing and laughing. Don’t say anything, just laugh.  

(Aside - I don’t know if they still make Ex-Lax laxative in the chocolate format.  My grandmother had some in her medicine cabinet and I thought it really was chocolate - and you can guess the rest of that story!!!)

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Similar - with at least two people, stare at the sky and point.  “Over here” - and point to someplace; keep pointing at things until other people start looking with you.  And, you can say “Yup - that is the sky”.

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Drop a few plops of blue food coloring into a new bottle of milk (ideally, buy that milk the day before on your grocery run!!). Start fixing up a breakfast of delicious cereal for your partner or kids, and wait for the reaction. Don’t say anything!!

(Karen adds - maybe after a minute or two pick up the bottle of milk and look at it - and maybe say “Oh my, the expiration date on this milk was two months ago.  Does it taste okay?”)

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Paint a bar of soap with clear nail polish and let it dry overnight. Put the soap in the shower or bath and wait for the questions to begin. (Pssst-> the soap won’t be able to suds up!)

(My comment - this will work, but maybe not my favorite.  With more and more liquid body wash products it might not get used!!)

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Grab one or two of the water bottles from the fridge in the morning and while over the sink, poke tiny pinholes into the sides using a sewing needle near the top of the bottle.  

Then let your family grab a bottle of water and see what happens.  

(Karen’s thoughts - if you are doing this at breakfast and your spouse and children are going off to work and school, getting them all wet might not be cool).

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First, bring a large suspicious bag to work and tell everyone that you’re definitely not going to do an April Fools joke. Walk around the office looking suspicious. Stand outside the bathrooms. Smile at the elevator.  Occasionally look in the bag and laugh!!  

Don’t do a prank.

(In my case, people might not trust me!!)

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Pick a person (unknown to them) and at an assigned time have everyone else in the office stand up in complete silence and leave the room. Bonus – film the reaction.

(Be careful or the person might just leave too!!!.  Let everyone go out and leave the person alone.  Maybe out in the hall everybody could call their office phone on their cell phone and just let them ring!!!)

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A professor friend told me this (and I believe it to be true). A student had taken a job working overnight in a local company.  He had a biology class at 8:00 in the morning and then would go home to sleep.  Well, some days (most days) he was just so tired that he would fall asleep in class. 

The professor decided to play a prank on the student and one day after the student fell asleep he had all the other students leave and then lit a small firecracker and slid it under the student’s chair he turned out the lights and left the classroom.  BOOM.  (Too bad it didn’t get filmed!!)

(I’m guessing these days there might be a lawsuit or the professor would get fired)

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A true story: I declared that April 1st was “Academic Apparel Day”, and I wore my cap-and-gown all day long.  (After all, it only gets worn one day a year).  Some people/students eventually pieced it together that Academic Apparel Day and April Fools Day just might be related).  The picture is me in my Academic Gown as Marshall for graduation at Quinnipiac University in 2012.

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SOME PRANKS I’VE PULLED:

The classroom building where I taught had an outlet in the ceiling and then ceiling tiles under the outlet.  That outlet was to be used by a projection system and there was an on-off switch on the wall.  After a few years, we had better projection systems and that outlet was forgotten.

So, I put a cassette tape player (yes, this prank is old) in the ceiling with about 15 minutes of silence on a tape.  I made sure the outlet was active, and after 15 minutes the tape player blared out “Ride of the Valkyries” by Wagner in the middle of a colleague’s class.  (Somehow he knew who to accuse!!)

This is the same colleague where we would interrupt other professors’ classes to sing “My Wild Irish Rose” on St. Patrick’s Day.  

This same colleague and I decided we needed to issue a “recall” of students' diplomas as a way to get an alumni event/get-together.  That got us in some minor trouble as some parents got the note and said “Oh my, they are recalling Johnny’s diploma.  Can they do that?”.  The students seeing the names on the recall notice knew it was their two old professors playing tricks (again).

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This prank was on me.

I was going to an academic conference to present a paper.  When I came back on Monday and opened my office door, my office was stuffed with wadded-up newspapers.

A similar experience was when we taped newspapers over the office door of a colleague (not as much work or paper as wadding up papers in an office!!!

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On April 1, 1998, Burger King announced it would now offer a version of the Whopper that had been carefully designed for left-handed folks. The joke was on Burger King, however, when stores across the country were flooded with orders for the left-handed Whopper.

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Years ago, a radio station announced that somebody had found 100 Grand in a public park.  It was true - but it was 100 Grand candy bars!!

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On April 1, 2002, a couple of Kansas City DJs announced the local water supply had been found to contain high levels of “dihydrogen monoxide” (DHMO), whose side effects included sweating, urination, and skin-pruning. Hundreds of citizens flooded the water department and the police with distressed phone calls. 

(Note: dihydrogen monoxide is really H2O)

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And, there can be the mundane things of putting a sign on the back of a person saying “kick me” or similar.  Posting all restrooms as ‘closed’.  (or posting a sign on the men’s restroom saying “Out of Order, Please use the Women’s Restroom”, Putting orange cones in the boss’ parking space.  

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Do you have some favorite pranks to share?

Did you have a great April Fool’s Day!!!

LOVE WINS!!

Karen - April 3, 2022