Pranks


In view of the large number of recent postings of college practical jokes,
I'll 'fess up that some friends and I were the instigators of many a prank
while undergraduates in college. The following are some of the better pranks:

1)  It somehow came to our attention that most of the campus street and
walkway lighting came on *simultaneously* each night, the actual time being
based upon the actual level of ambient light. It was obvious that there was
a central control point with a photoelectric sensor somewhere.
    After a few exploratory tours of the campus, we came upon a likely
location:  two photoelectric controls mounted on the roof of a service
building directly across from the campus electrical substation.
    After "borrowing" an extension ladder from a telephone company truck
(which was always left parked near a service building), one Friday night
about 10:00 PM (peak campus traffic time) we climbed on the roof of the
service building and taped flashlights to each of the two photoelectric
sensors. Instant blackness!
    Actually, the most amazing part was that it took OVER ONE HOUR for the
campus maintenance people to restore the lights! I would have thought there
to be some kind of manual override for the photoelectric cells, but perhaps
the maintenance people thought there was some kind of underground cable fault
so they didn't rashly restore power.

2)  The father of my dorm roommate worked as a repairman for the Otis
Elevator Company.  One weekend, I stayed with my roommate at his parent's
home.  While talking with his father, we learned an *amazing* fact: almost all
escalators are reversible for use in breakdowns or emergencies; there is
usually a key operated reversing switch located under the handrail at each
end of the escalator.  We also learned a second *amazing* fact: most all Otis
elevators and escalators use the *same* key.  While my roommate's father went
out for the evening, we swiped his work keys, and were able to get many of
them duplicated.
    As soon as we returned to campus on Sunday evening, we went in search of
an Otis Elevator (we didn't have to go far - our dorm had one).  Sure enough,
we had The Key.  Over the next few days, we found that The Key worked on every
Otis Elevator that we tried on campus.
    We were now ready for an escalator (there were none on campus), and we
readily found one in a five floor department store in the heart of the
downtown shopping district.  It was an Otis, and sure 'nuff it had a reversing
switch at each end beneath the handrail.
    We came back on Wednesday night, which was the peak shopping night of the
week.  There were two pairs of escalators - one at each end of the store.
After nervously waiting for the right moment when no one was on the UP
escalator, and no one was looking, my roommate inserted The Key, and turned
it.  Grrr-klunk-grrr.  The UP escalator came to a halt, and reversed direction
- it was now going DOWN!  We quickly went  to the other escalator pair, and I
got the honor of inserting the key.
    We now had an increasingly crowded department store with four escalators
on the main floor, all going down!  We tried to act inconspicuous as possible
(not easy with half dozen 18-19 year-olds sporadically going into fits of
hysterical laughter!) and watch the action.  People would step on the UP
escalator without looking at direction, and then step back in shock.  Then
shock would change to disbelief: an UP escalator going DOWN - impossible!
People in the store were forming an oval as they traveled from the front
escalators to the rear and back, trying to figure out how to get to the
second floor. After about ten minutes of this, with the main floor crowd
growing larger, a *very* agitated person wearing a suit (must have been the
manager) came by with a big ring of keys, frantically trying each key in the
escalator until he found the right one to operate the key switch. Since the
manager was eying us suspiciously, we didn't stick around to find out any
more about the situation.

*****

    All this talk about practical jokes reminds me of one I heard about in
high school.  It seems that a psychology class decided to give their new found
knowledge of the "power of suggestion" a little test.  Some of the students
had another class together and decided to play a little trick on their
teacher.  Whenever the teacher was on the left side of the room, they would
act really interested and when he was on the right side of the room, they
would act really bored.  Well, it seems that this behavior did its job on
the teacher's subconscious and he was practically crawling on the left wall
by the end of class.