With the approaching of April Fools' Day, students should be aware that their friends may have some pranks in store for them.

There a variety of different pranks that people play on each other. Some are harmless jests while others can be more dangerous.

One of the classic types of pranks, which have been glamorized by such characters as Bart Simpson and the Jerky Boys, involves the telephone.

"We had this one lady that worked at a gas station that we would call up, " said Bryan Rea, an undecided freshman. "We'd act like we had some weird accent and tell her that we bought something there, got food poisoning, and wanted our money back."

Rea would call the woman several times a night for a few days until she finally called the police.

"They couldn't find us," he said. "We were calling from a cell phone."

Other pranks start at home. Brothers and sisters are notorious for conjuring mischief against one another.

"I have four brothers, so I've had various pranks played on me," said Jaime O'Reilly, a sophomore psychology major. "It was always boys versus girls."

O'Reilly said she was always the brunt of her brothers twisted sense of humor.

"We have these little frogs, because we live by a creek, and they got a whole peanut can full of them and let them go in my dresser," she said. "I screamed really loud."

However, O'Reilly said that she did get her revenge on some occasions. In one instance, it involved her brother Robert.

"I wrote a love note and said it was from this girl he had a crush on, telling him to meet her at the school at eleven o'clock at night," she said. "He went up there for about two hours."

The workplace is another venue where practical jokes occur, usually at the expense of new employees. O'Reilly said this hazing was common practice when she worked at McDonald's.

"If there was a new person, we'd tell them to go in the basement and pick up some 'plain' sauce, or have them go mop the freezer," she said. "The people would do it because they were so nervous because it was their first day."

The friction between roommates at college sometimes fuels the inspiration for devious acts.

"I had a roommate that was a little bit annoying and he got really drunk one night and puked all over my room," said Ruben Connor, a senior psychology major. "I decided to get him back."

"At my old school [Southwest Baptist University], if you drank and got caught, you could get kicked out of school permanently," he said. "We decided we were going to fake him getting caught."

Along with fellow classmates, Connor devised a plan to send his roommate into a worried frenzy.

"I printed a letter on stationary from the offices of student life that said 'we are aware of the fact that you consumed alcoholic beverages on campus and proceeded to regurgitate it all over school property,'" Connor said.

"We put it in his mailbox on April Fools' Day and he freaked out for two days."

Connor later told his roommate the truth. However, the stress of expulsion caused the roommate to leave school and move to Hawaii.

The worst pranks come from the best of friends. Birthdays are typically a haven for deceptive jokes. Doug Dicharry, an undecided sophomore, said he, along with other conspirators, kidnapped their friend Robby Corcoran.

"It was his birthday and we went to his house," he said. "My friend, Sean, lures him out and we are all wearing masks and have code names."

They tackled Corcoran, tied him up, threw him in the back of a pickup truck and drove to their friend's house.

"We carry him upstairs, put him on this bed and poured a full glass of vodka down his throat," said Dicharry. "We did this several times."

They continued to smack Corcoran on his butt and yell at him.

"He was freaking out," Dicharry said. "I think he probably figured it out after a while but we had masks on."

Eventually the prank would end and the birthday festivities would continue.

"We untied him and then we got really drunk."

Pranks come from all directions. With April Fools' Day nearly here, it should be known that no one is safe.

Published by The Chart on 3/21/2000.

Article's Posting at the Chart's Website

Scan of the Printed Article