Popcorn Doors

I was at a conference in California when I heard about this prank from my program director. She had evidently hit some 18 houses with this one, and still managed to avoid being caught. I told her I’d try it out in our “East Coast” Prank War (soon to go transcontinental as of graduation.) I’d say this worked fairly well. It was a smaller-scale prank. You know.

Supplies: Trash bags (or tablecloth, sheet, etcetera), duct tape, popcorn (around 15 bags per door at least.) You could splurge on an air-popper if you plan to do this as frequently as my program director.

Execution: Pop the popcorn, clearly. And while you do, you’ll need to construct a sheet of trash bags that can stretch the width of the doorframe in question. I met my team and we put tape around three edges of the bag so that we could tape it to the doorframe and floor (as close to the door as you can, so as to maximize the volume of popcorn.) Fill the space with popcorn and scramble to safety. When your victim opens the door in the morning, they’ll flood their room or foyer with popcorn.

Caution: Watch out for sizzling grease and over-heating microwaves!

Difficulty: The only thing that’s difficult about this one is being stealthy. I used three helpers (two people per door) so we could be as quiet as possible. Keep in mind that your victim has to be inside the room.

Pranking Paralytics: Morality

I like to blame “the man” for a lot of things. For example, I blame the paternalistic socialization I underwent as a child (where good girls don’t do gross, annoying, or overly rambunctious things) for my heightened sense of pranker’s guilt. Once I dumped a bag of Chex Mix in Tyler Jimmy’s bed (or under the carpet, can’t remember which – this was during the early days of the War!) and remember thinking about the bugs. Oh, the bugs were going to infest his room, and bother his poor roommate who had nothing to do with the pranking, and then these bugs would eat through his furniture and eventually bring the ceiling down because they’d turned their voracious appetite towards the Sondheim House infrastructure.

It didn’t really get that far. But you may have experienced similar, less paranoid feelings when pranking. In fact, such sentiments may have prevented you from pulling off a couple-o-good-ones. That’s why I call Morality a pranking paralytic.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for values and have a great many of them myself. But I believe that the world of pranking, like the worlds of fiction writing, professional wrestling and university, is a world where you must suspend your normal judgments in exchange for a new subjective set.

I encourage you to communicate with your pranking partner: What don’t you like? What makes you uncomfortable? What is too far? (This analogy has gone too far!) Set up boundaries. For example, off limit zones are: hair, underwear, musical instruments, electronics. And if it’s not off limits, go there! Screw it, I say -- you’re already pranking. And pranking is not nice!

Bed Time - Egg Time!

Here’s a prank that did not go over as well as I had hoped. You could say that Tyler Jimmy got lucky, but I think there was an error in execution on my part. The idea was this: set raw eggs (ever so gently) under the covers on the bed and in the pillow -- making bed time, egg time! He can tell you more about how he caught on to the eggs, but suffice it to say only one was broken, and I believe he found this one … and crushed it out of principle.

One lesson learned: Tell your victim you have pranked them! You can make them do all kinds of screwy things when they’re paranoid (like clean their room.)

Supplies: Raw eggs, rotten is better! Remember that a bad egg sinks in water.

Execution: Access bed, insert eggs.

Difficulty: Not very hard if you have eggs handy (mine were contributed by some prank-patrons down the hall.) I suppose the difficult part is placing these strategically where they will be crushed but not noticed first. Let me know if you use this prank successfully.

Sentimental Value

Supplies: Something important. Jello and Tupperware.

Execution: Again, it’s up to chance whether or not you can get something of particular value to the victim, but once you get it, be sure to wrap it in plastic and suspend it in set Jello.

Difficulty: Needs four hours to set….

Peeps!

Supplies: Peeps.

Execution: Peeps, when you separate them from each other have a sticky side where their marshmallow-fluff-interiors are exposed. These are great for slapping peeps to doors, furniture, forearms. Try microwaving them. (That’s a classic.)

Difficulty: Easy.