Am I Missing Something?

Thought for the day:  Everything is funny as long as it's happening to somebody else. [Will Rogers]

Now, let me be the first to say I don't have anything against class clowns. (I mean, heck... I married one!) But the pranks we used to pull in school back in the Dark Ages were... funny. By definition, a prank is a practical joke or mischievous act, and in my opinion, that should translate to something that's creative, humorous, harmless, and legal.

I dunno. Maybe I'm just an old fuddy duddy. But I don't think so; I don't think it's just because I'm growing older.

Heck, I don't even remember much in the way of senior pranks when Smarticus and I graduated from good ol' Dundalk High School. (Which has since been demolished...) Certainly nothing organized on a large-scale, anyhow. Closest thing to that was in junior high, when all the boys in our class would roll up their neckties and unfurl them simultaneously. (Yeah, we were bad asses back then.) Or the whole class would drop and then bend to retrieve a pencil at the same time. It was silly, and mildly amusing, and we only did that sort of thing with teachers who had a sense of humor.

                                                           Remember this song?

I came across that picture of plastic flamingos on morguefile.com, and it reminded me of a prank the youth group at our church used to pull when our boys were teenagers. They'd cover some poor parishioner's lawn with about forty flamingos for a week at a time... and all it took was a small donation to get the gaudy boogers hauled off PDQ. Okay, so technically, you could call that a form of extortion, but it was all in good fun (and fund), and if anyone wanted to opt out of getting bird-bombed, they could do so. (As best as I remember, no one did.)

I'm not sure when it started, but evidently big-time  senior class pranks are standard procedure nowadays. So much so, I even found some websites offering suggestions on pranks students could pull. Stuff like:

• Creating a slip-and-slide in the hallway with a sheet of plastic, a bucket of water and lotion. (Oooh, slick!)
• Lining the walls with post-it notes from floor to ceiling. 
• Blocking stairways with plastic cups turned upside down. (Gotta admit... I like that one!)
• Letting ten crickets loose in the hallways. (HA! Another good un.)
• Turning the cafeteria into a beach scene with tiki torches, beach balls, inflatable palm trees, and a plastic pool filled with sand. 
• Having every senior hide an alarm clock somewhere around the school, set to go off at a random time. (Alarming!)
• Putting petroleum jelly on all doorknobs and handrails. (Another slick one!)

Some websites even offer helpful hints as to senior pranks that can be pulled outdoors. My personal favorite involved placing a huge for sale sign out on the school's front lawn. And these others aren't  too bad, either:

• Writing the graduation year on the front lawn... with cocktail umbrellas, toothpicks, or plastic forks. OR with rock salt, which would kill the grass in the desired pattern. (Which might be frowned upon by the establishment.)
• Painting the year on a rock or hillside with non-toxic paint.
• Hanging bras or jock straps from a tree. (HA!)
• Filling the school fountain with bubble bath, rubber ducks, or food coloring. (School fountain? Must be for wealthy schools.)
• Having a root beer keg party. 
• Having a slumber party on the front lawn.
• Putting something on the flag pole, like tires. (I think it'd be funnier to fly a HUGE pair of panties...)

There was a wee little article in the newspaper recently. In fact, so small, it's a wonder I noticed it at all, but that article is what prompted this blog post. It was about what the paper called a senior class prank, which occurred in New Jersey.

Sixty-two students broke into their high school shortly after 2 AM and proceeded to wreak havoc. (My words, not the paper's.) They did some of the standard balloons and silly string throughout the school, and petroleum jelly on the doorknobs, and they even got a little more creative by taping hot dogs to the lockers. In addition, they overturned and broke furniture, spray-painted grafitti on the walls, and urinated in the hallways. Police responded to the burglar alarm, and all sixty-two students were arrested.

I dunno. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I am an old fuddy-duddy... but how does that behavior qualify as a senior prank? To me, that behavior qualifies as vandalism. Personally, they lost my sympathy with the whole broke into part.

But if you wanta read about pranks... about, in fact, some of the best pranks of all time, check out this old post from April 1. 2011. Now those were some pranks!

So, what do you guys think? Did your senior class pull any pranks? Do tell...

Oh, by the way, an update on an earlier post. Remember the story about affluenza I posted in January? Essentially, it was about a drunk-driving teenager from a privileged background who got away with a virtual slap on the wrist and a stay at a ritzy rehab center for killing four people, and injuring numerous others while driving under the influence. The update? The family of the teenager who was paralyzed for life by that accident sued, as I told you they were planning to do... and they were recently awarded two million dollars. Unfortunately, their son is still paralyzed.

Oh yeah... if you're interested, you'd better hurry: the e-version of Hot Flashes and Cold Lemonade is on sale on Amazon for the paltry sum of ninety-nine cents right now... but only for a couple days.

                                          Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

[Thanks to Wikipedia, morguefile.com and icanhascheezburger.com for the use of their images.]