Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The guy who sits across from me at work, whom we'll call Ashton, is a bit of a prankster. He and another coworker often amused themselves by playing minor pranks on each other. His prank partner, however, recently quit, leaving Ashton looking around the office for someone to be the new butt of his prank energy. That person turned out to be me.

So, for about a week, I'd come into the office and find my desk transformed into some minor shrine to Ashton's boredom. Maybe I'd find packages hanging in effigy above my desk, or perhaps a more intricately carved structure sitting in my chair, lamenting my flaw of the week. I never had much of a retort. This week, however, Ashton departed for a two week vacation, leaving me adequate time to plan something in his absence.

I racked my brain and came up with nothing. On Monday, during the drive into work, I asked Hank and the 3 kids in the back seat, what I could possibly do as a prank.

"My dad is a big prankster!" the 6 year-old offered enthusiastically. "He used to play pranks all the time on his sister!"

"Oh yeah? What kind of pranks did he do?" I asked curiously

"He pushed her down the stairs!" she answered proudly.

I seriously considered the merit of this particular idea. Watching Ashton tumble, ass over teakettle, down the stairs with me gleefully screeching "Gotcha!" at the top was undeniably intriguing. It also, however, seemed unappealingly litigious. I resigned myself to finding something less criminal in nature.

I got to my desk that morning and made a list of all the things Ashton hated. Being a curmudgeon, that list was pretty expansive. At the top of the list, however, was Twitter. Ashton HATES twitter.

Ding!

Seconds later I was the owner of a brand new Ashton Twitter account. For the next two weeks, I'll be "tweeting" messages as him, mocking every ridiculous aspect of his personality that comes to mind. Ashton, for example, while residing in one of the finest culinary cities in the world, eats the same goddamn sandwich every day for lunch AND RAVES ABOUT IT. Let's just say that I'm not lacking for material.

When Ashton gets back from his vacation, he's going to find his email Inbox filled with messages from his friends and coworkers informing him that they're "following" him on his Twitter account.

I can't wait.

5 comments:

waitress said...

Pranks are fun as long as nobody gets hurt!!

Sue said...

My hubby went into work last week to discover that a guy he manages had glued everything down on his pranking nemisis' desk. Morning gone.

Another "great" one was "borrowing" someone's phone and texting that he (owner of the phone) was coming out (you'll get the SF reference). That went over real well.

Enjoy!

Mike said...

Hi Waitress. I think we'll all come out of this one unscathed.

Sue, I like that glue one, but I can see how it might be a wee bit disruptive.

Bob Thomas said...

A coworker of mine put some tissue paper in the ear end of his coworker's phone. Each week he would add a little more till the poor guy thought that he was going deaf.

Another time the same guy got someone else to call the coworker just after he came back from the dentist's office. The victim of the prank was all numb from novocaine and could barely mumble.
The message the mystery caller gave was that the victim should return to the dentist's office - through a horrible mixup they had drilled and filled the wrong tooth. The victim was slamming things and mumbling loudly, "I can't $%$^^&& believe it." Of course the prankster had to ask,"What's wrong?" He let the victim go out the door and wasn't able to keep him from driving away (or did he just drag his feet?).
The victim was really angry when he got back from the dentist's office - where they had no idea why the victim/patient had returned in a foul mood.

Recounting the tale they both get laughing so much that some listeners are brought to tears.

Mike said...

Bob, those are both better pranks than what I pulled off, but I'm pretty happy keeping things at a low level knowing that I would not be terribly pleased to be on the receiving end of a more significant prank.