Playing mind games

[GB]

AllenMI's Food Hoaxes thread made me remember something I had forgotten about that I did to my wife a number of years back before we were married.

I was at home while she was out for most of the day. I wrote down a bunch of words and phrases and then cut up the paper so each word or phrase was on a little piece of paper. Lots of them were the same. For instance, I had a stack or 10 or so pieces or paper that said "yes" and the same amount that said "no". Some said things like "I know it is" and others said things like "because I love you". I had about 20 or 30 different words or phrases. I put them all on the arm of the sofa where I was sitting. They were all upside down so it just looked like 20 or 30 neat little piles of paper. I had memorized which words or phrases where in which pile. When DW came home so walked over to the couch and said hi. I looked at the pile and picked up my first piece of paper and handed it to her. It said "hi". She looked at me like I was crazy. She said something like "what are you doing?" so I handed her a piece of paper that said "just talking to my girlfriend". I had anticipated how the whole conversation would go and lucky for me I anticipated pretty well. I don't think she stumped me once. It was so much fun and I had completely forgotten about it until I read Allens thread and it somehow made this memory pop into my head.

 

[pdswife]

Great story!
Wonderful memory. Talk to your wife about it tonight.
It'll be good for you both!! Have fun.

 

[AllenOK]

That's a great one!

I would never be able to get away with that on PeppA. Once she figured out what was going on, she'd pull some oddball question out of her hat.

 

[GB]

Yeah I was pretty nervous that she was going to harpoon me Allen. I would have looked pretty foolish sitting there with a pile of paper and nothing that would answer her questions. Luckily it worked out in my favor and I had an answer for everything she asked. I was very relieved.

 

[GB]

OK now that I have shared this memory, does anyone have any similar (or not so similar) mind game type things they have done?

 

[Barbara L]

I was the PTA newsletter editor at a school I worked at (before I was a teacher). One of the features I included each month was a little article about a teacher (usually a couple each month). One month, when the principal was out of state for a convention (which is not why I chose that particular time, but it helped me out a lot), I played a prank on one of the teachers (a really sweet person, and a good friend). It was the month I had chosen her for the article. In her information sheet, she had said that she liked to play the flute, and she liked ballroom dancing. I got the head custodian in on my prank (he was a friend of ours also). I made a special copy of the newsletter just for her. The article about her did tell about how she played the flute and liked ballroom dancing, but it also said that she and her best friend (the PTA president) liked to toilet-paper peoples' houses in their spare time (they actually did do this sometimes). I gave the fake copy to the head custodian, and he brought it down to her. He went in like he was really upset and said, "Look what Barbara did!" If I had been in the room when he gave it to her, I think she would have killed me! She was mortified. The newsletter had to be approved by the principal first, so she asked Mike, "How did she get it past him?" Mike reminded her that he was out of town. Once she knew it was a joke, she was ok, but I scared the poor thing out of her mind--she was sure she was going to be fired. She did forgive me!

Barbara

 

[mudbug]

Tee hee - why are we so naughty?

Had a creative co-worker back in Chicago who played one on the new guy.

He created a fake RFP (Request for Proposal - typical document used by various entities soliciting bids for consulting work) for the Republic of Bulimia (it was an international proposal after all).

The form he created that had to be filled out by us included questions requiring all kinds of detailed and arcane information, and the boxes on the form to provide said info were extremely tiny. The coup de grace was the post-it note on top with a note in very similar but not authentic handwriting of our idiot boss, whose usual instructions were "please handle."

New guy walks into boss's office to ask about howintheh*ll he should fill this silly form out. Boss was not amused. The rest of us, including new guy, laughed our butts off.

 

[jkath]

Quite brilliant, GB!
Sounds as though it ought to be included as a great scene in a movie.

 

[GB]

Barbara and Mudbug those are awesome!

Barbara some how I have a feeling Maidrite might have a few up his sleeves too maybe

 

[Barbara L]

Who? Mr. Sweet and Innocent?

Barbara

 

[buckytom]

practical jokes are my specialty.

i've done everything from getting a flock of geese to attack a buddy in the front of my canoe (after he hassled them earlier) by spreading doritos across the water behind his back. the best part is he's terrified of birds and can't swim; to, in an escalating battle of practical jokes with a co-worker, i wrote my home phone number inside a matchbook from a strip club with the name bambi, and put it in the guys briefcase, knowing his jealous wife would search it as she did often. i got my neighbor to record her voice as bambi on my answering machine. you shoulda heard the message his wife left. it was fun listening at work the next day at work when he came in. sadly, they're divorced today...
there was another co-worker's kid who kept screwing up my computer downloading stuff when his dad brought him in and i wasn't around. i warned him many times to stop, but he just mocked me, in his 13 year old annoying way. so, one thanksgiving, i squirted habanero juice all over his dinner, and i enjoyed watching him sweat as his father made him eat it. the kid was known for being a picky eater, so i knew his dad would force him to eat some and wouldn't listen to the kid's complaints. it was worth paying for another meal from the cafeteria.

another co-worker left his lottery ticket on his desk, so we copied down the numbers. later, when he asked me to tell him the numbers out of the newspaper i was reading, i repeated his numbers. we let him think he won millions for a while, until he was about to leave. there were a few priceless moments that i thought he was going to go give our boss a piece of his mind. we all swear we wouldn't have let him do that, tho.
similarly, at a friend's younger brother's 21st birthday, we gave him one of those fake scratch off lottery tickets. he didn't know that he didn't win $50k until the next morning.


this all started when i was a kid. my dad would feign heart attacks very convincingly, getting my mom really upset. he even told me she passed away one april fool's day. my brother was the master of telling you to "go long, go long" when having a catch with a football, then he'd run in the house because he heard mom call us in for dessert and i hadn't because by then i was all the way down the street. or he'd keep looking over your shoulder, and when you'd look, there went the rest of your dessert.

sundays were the only day my sisters were allowed to eat breakfast in front of the tv, so we had to rotate turns on what shows we wanted to watch. if my next oldest sister really wanted to watch something, but it was my turn, she'd whack herself across her face, leaving a nasty red handmark, then pretend to cry and call my mom, saying i did it. my poor mother would then drag me into the kitchen by my ear with my sisters giggling, changing the channel.

when my brother went off to vietnam, my sister and i put barbies and g.i.joes in his duffel so when he got to the base and dumped it out on his bunk, the other soldiers would see them.

of course, the old classics of "the birthday cake kinda smells funny"---whap, and tying shoe laces together, and pretending to hack off a limb and squirt blood are being taught to the new generation at all family gatherings.

 

[Andy M.]

...sundays were the only day my sisters were allowed to eat breakfast in front of the tv, so we had to rotate turns on what shows we wanted to watch. if my next oldest sister really wanted to watch something, but it was my turn, she'd whack herself across her face, leaving a nasty red handmark, then pretend to cry and call my mom, saying i did it. my poor mother would then drag me into the kitchen by my ear with my sisters giggling, changing the channel...

BT:

Making a mental note to never cross Buckytom...

I assume that after your sister pulled that a couple of times, you did the slapping yourself. After all, you might as well get something out of it.

 

[RMS]

What great stories! Thanks for sharing them!

 

[babetoo]

bloody thanksgiving

a few years ago, handed my son the electric knife to carve turkey went to sun room to have a smoke and rest. i can see in my kitchen from the sun room.

i looked up, he was holding his hand. i ran in the house, he had blood ( catsup ) on his hand and running down his arm. was ready to get him to the er when the rest of family started laughing. then i knew. really shook me up though and at the time did not think it was funny.

babe