The Jungle

The title comes from here.

Supplies: Raw meat, preferably nast already so you’re not wasting fresh stuff. Ideally, you’d be able to hit a supermarket deli around 7 p.m. and talk about whether they throw out their meat or not. I would be giving this same tip if this blog was ‘I love feeding hungry people’. Masking tape or duct tape if you feel comfortable about it not taking the wall with it.

Execution: After you’ve fed some people who need it with the tons of unnecessarily discarded food [grr America], save a pound of meat for your victim. Tape half a pound of meat in semi-obvious places, using strips about the length of your hand. Two lengths of tape crosswise should hold them. Then go for difficult spots – the ceiling in the closet, under a laundry basket, to the underside of dresser drawers, lampshades. Hopefully, they won’t be completely thorough in their search and forced to find some by smell, as I believe Double Cee was.

The above painting is titled 'Rotting Meat', and it's by Cindy Wright.

Difficulty: Rather low. It’s about stretching resources. Ten minutes for the semi-obvy meat chunks, twenty for the hard-to-check places. Not much damage to your calendar or wallet, and it can be pretty annoying for the prankee.

NOTE: Make sure your victim and your meat match; you don’t want to be mushing pulled pork against an Orthodox Jew’s wall.

My Pranking Cup Overfloweth

This post is dedicated to Catherine!

I've decided to take matters into my own hands. Therefore, the ensuing post will be out of its originally designed context. That is to say, I'm about to explain how to defuse a prank that Tyler Jimmy has not explained how to execute.

I am not patient.

I had an advantage in disassembling this prank: I knew it was coming!

You could say that I metaphorically caught Tyler Jimmy with his pranking-pants down. I happened to walk into the room while the cup-sculpture was under construction. I assumed cups were made for filling, and when Tyler Jimmy didn’t show up for class Thursday night – I knew it was only a matter of time before somebody spilled… the prank.

(I’m not apologizing for that.)

Sure enough, I arrived home to find the image to your left. I contemplated the cups around my room, cursing and shuffling. It occurred to me to drain the cup by puncturing the bottom and maneuvering the cup over a plastic dish. Yeah, that doesn’t work! You’ll dump as much water onto the floor from the connected cups as you empty.

(Insert Act Two here – including dramatic build up, choreographed dance competitions and a team of Alaskan snow dogs.)

The de-pranking muses graced me right around this time, and here’s how I did finally get the construction apart. Using an exacto-knife I cut away sections of the cups, slicing under the staple when the water level was below the level of the said fastener. You’ll have to finagle. I used a tray to carry the sections to the sink where I dumped them out. Doing this it took me about an hour total to get the cups cleaned up (including some spilled “water.”)

I would go on here about how the smell of nutmeg and dish soap brought back memories of my dad in his bachelor days (when he’d just started working for McCormick Spice Company) – but this post has gone on long enough. And my dad doesn't prank me.

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.

Dead Animals

Supplies: Found, dead animals. (Please, don’t kill for pranks – it’s not sustainable.) Box and newspapers. Mouse traps.

Execution: When you find the animal, you can package and mail it, hide it in your victim’s shoe (cough, cough – real nice excuse not to work out that day,) or … make it into a sandwich?

Difficulty: If you’re lucky enough to get the animal, it’s only a matter of containing yourself long enough to set up a good prank.

Bucket of Nast

Supplies: Bucket, water, yogurt, oil – really any liquid. Bonus material: garbage, feminine hygiene products, food particles. Remember that anything is nastier when wet.

Execution: Fill bucket with nast, then lean against a door so that it falls into the room when opened.

Difficulty Level: Disproportionately low given its potency. Getting your hands on a bucket will be the most difficult part.