One dear pal was way too easy to prank, so he got a lot of attention. Sometimes his lovely lady helped me with the more involved pranks.

No details because the best pranks are original and I want you all to come up with personalized pranks. It's good mental exercise and shows you care.

At least if you want to stay married.

Early on after Texas decided to have the lottery I noticed one station showed the results a couple minutes earlier before the other my wife watched. I got a piece of paper and wrote down the results. Ran in there and told her to check my numbers. I said the ticket was in the car, but here’s the numbers. Went into the bathroom acting like I had to go. Heard the screaming from the living room. Let her go on for a little while. Then told her.

Anyways I had about 2 weeks of every time she spoke to me it was sob. About another 2 of her saying it sometimes then finally stopped.

We were happily married 47 years. She passed away last year.

Our work stations were relatively close to each other and back to back. I had my lottery tix sitting on my station that evening.

My "buddy" could see through and wrote down my numbers. It wasn't long before someone came by with the "winning" numbers and you can imagine the rest. Fortunately, I didn't quit my job and run out the door, but Jack couldn't quite se the last number and missed it by one digit.

Jack passed this past July and his family got one more laugh out of it as they recanted the story he told. It was a good one, fortunately on someone who could take a joke..

And may her memory be eternal. My sweetheart and I made it to 40 years.

I was driving with a good friend in the passenger seat. I've always had older clunkers.
We were doing about 55 down a long straight two lane country road with railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill.

On this afternoon there happened to be a freight train slowly crossing the road and I waited until we were a hundred yards or so away before I pretended to pump the brakes with an audible thump each time. I didn't look over but just deadpanned "aw shit".

Then I laughed and slowed down. Scott did not laugh along with me. Quite the opposite. I don't understand, I saved his life!

At our new building, the toilets had the tank up high (like in the Godfather) so you'd yank on the chain to flush. The pipe from the tank to the toilet was plastic. The pipe nut was hand tight. We loosened it.

The next morning, before the Service, the Reverend went to do "God's Work". When he was done, he did not stand up. While he was sitting there, he yanked the chain and was inundated with a cascade of cold water. He ended up giving the sermon without any clothes on under his Robe.

He was possessed with a tremendous sense of humor and thought the whole situation was hilarious. He was a nice man who bore an uncanny resemblance to David Ben-Gurion.

I ended up having to pay a dry cleaning bill out of my pocket money.

Everyone will fall for this, even car people. Trust me
Tell the victim next to you that your car came with the optional "Passenger Horn" to use in case the driver doesn't see a situation or hazard. Then, reach over and press anything on that side of the dashboard while using your thumb on the actual horn.

Hilarity will ensue to a level of your choosing.

That randomly made cricket sounds and stuck it under the desk of my boss. Funny thing was it attracted real crickets. So he kept thinking he had killed it.

We had a co-worker who several of us teased (always good-naturedly, never mean or bullying; he teased us back, so we all got some of it.) While he was out to lunch, I smeared a good dollop of ketchup on the earpiece and handle of his desk phone, and carefully replaced it on the base. When he returned from lunch, I called him from another desk far enough away that he wouldn't hear me. Naturally, as expected, he picked up the the phone handle when it rang and put it to his ear. It took him a few seconds to realize that he had ketchup on his hand, then on his ear as well. The guy sharing his cubicle (a co-conspirator), said the look of disgust on his face was priceless!

I participated in dangerous pranks in younger days, and in retrospect I was a fool. I walked into an environment where pranks were elevated to a technological art form. I once sat on a tack connected to an ignition coil. 40,000 volts delivered to at least two layers of tender buttock. I can’t elaborate on my retaliation, but, believe me, I got even.

It was worthy of CSI Vegas.

had a huge crush on George Clooney. So, when she happened to miss her birthday celebration that employees always gave their co-workers because she didn’t want any fuss on her own special day, I found an especially lovely birthday card and signed it “George Clooney”, saying how sorry he was she wasn’t there when he made a surprise appearance. And I got the rest of the staff to go along with the prank.


She kept the card on her desk for a long time.

I wanted to prank the very very sharp, nice, and attractive female IT analyst in the cubicle next to mine.

This was in the days when you sat down at your computer, saw the C: prompt, and typed in a code to go where you wanted to go on the mainframe. So I wrote a program in BASIC and left it running on her machine first thing in the morning. It showed a blank screen except for a fake C: prompt.

So she came in and saw the C: prompt and typed in the code, and the computer printed out "You want to go where?" She turned aside for a moment (I had been watching her and anticipated this) and the caption disappeared. So she typed the code in again. This time the computer came back with "Are you sure you want to go there?" She turned aside again to talk to the analyst across the aisle (who was in on it), and, when she came back, the caption had disappeared. She looked at the blank screen for a moment, trying to figure it out, and the screen printed out "Don't look at me like that, lady, I'm just a dumb machine."

By this time the other analyst and I were in hysterics. I told her about the program and she printed it out.

She did speak to me after that.

Most of my work life from the early 1980s was supporting public schools and Apple Computers.
Back then, Apple was not selling directly to public schools, but rather, they designated a "local" official dealer.
I worked closely with the "local dealer" and the public schools to facilitate purchasing.
I had a great working relationship with the dealer's staff and the owner himself.
The typical Apple computers back then were Apple II and IIc. Each computer's storage device was a 5 1/4-inch floppy disk.

I had access to multiple copies of the only available software back then. I decided to sacrifice one copy for a prank.
I took the original copy with the label, folded it in half, and stapled it together.
I put it in a business-size envelope with a note written with terse language and threats.

Something like this: "This piece of junk didn't work out of the package! Fix the blankety-blank thing and return it to me immediately."
I signed the note Mike Rohacker and sent it off by USPS.

I visited the dealer two weeks later to catch up on school orders. After talking business, I asked if there was anything new I should know about. He paused for a moment and then said, "Yes!" Come with me. So we went to the workshop in the basement, and he said, "Hey guys, where is that blankety-blank floppy disk that some nut sent us?"

I lasted 30 seconds before I couldn't stop laughing. They all looked at each other and then back at me.

A perfect prank delivered with success....from Mike Rohacker, aka Micro Hacker.

I walk in. This was a Friday afternoon.

Everyone looks up from their desk with those fake eyeglasses, nose, and mustache disguises. 😄
It was Oct ?30th, (or 31st), and the boss was away.