By Eli Wallace
Holiday season is over. New Year’s came and passed; Valentine’s and St. Paddy’s flew in procession behind. With no real holidays in sight (I don’t count Easter only because 1. the Easter bunny is creepy and 2. I always eat too much candy and feel sick), I’m holding on to hope for April 1st.
April Fool’s Day, the holiday nobody remembers unless they get a real kick out of being sort of mean. The holiday for getting people good. This year it falls on a Wednesday, which is optimum timing to get out the hump day blues with office-related pranks. Here’s a few (nicer) pranks, along with some inspiration for a few (maybe a little meaner) pranks for home.
1. The Great Candy Confusion
Effort Level: 2/10
Meanness Level: 3/10
Hilarity Level: 4/10 if you wait to see the reactions.
Step one: buy similar looking candies in bulk—I’m talking Skittles, M&Ms (lots of different flavors to work with), and Reese’s Pieces.
Step two: dump all candies in same bowl. Mix.
Step three: put bowl in workplace common area. Wait.
2. Bake some Brown-Es, Ore-NOs and Dough-NOTs
Effort Level: 5/10
Meanness Level: 7/10
Hilarity Level: 7/10
So you want to crush the hopes and dreams of your friends and family by bringing up their expectations, only to dash them on the ground? Preferably through spit-takes?
Easy. Brown-Es, the nicest version of this prank, involves large brown construction paper Es placed into a baking dish with foil over it.
The meaner version is to feed people switched out food; for example, mix Sprite and Soy Sauce into a Coke container (very mean) or make Oreo dummies by scraping out the filling and replacing with toothpaste (not nice, lots of effort).
My personal favorite, which strikes a nice balance between effort, meanness and results? Powdered doughnuts made from regular doughnuts and baking soda. It’ll clean your teeth, make a mess, and ruin your friends’ day. Because what else is the spirit of this holiday?
3. Get High Tech: Phones, Mouses, and Computers
Effort Level: 4-7/10, depending on experience
Meanness Level: 8/10
Hilarity Level: 8/10
Yes, it’s mean, but the payoff is also high. There’s tons of cyberpranks to pull, but I’m of the opinion simpler is better. That’s why I go for the old mouse-doesn’t-work trick.
You’ll need: pen, scissors, post-it note, tape (maybe).
Sit at your favorite coworker’s desk. Attach the post-it to the bottom of the mouse, over the red tracking light. Cut the edges of the post-it so that you can’t see it from above. Optional: write ‘Haha!’ all over the bottom of the post-it.
If that’s not enough for your jollies, Mr. Sadomasochist, mess with computers or phones. Meanness level is going up to 9/10 on this, a tipping point known to ruin friendships. Be warned.
Plenty of places online tout changing all the contacts in a person’s phone to, say, Harry Potter characters, or fictional characters in general (which a drunk friend has done to me, not on April 1st, and I STILL don’t know who Sherlock Holmes is; especially mean if the using Android because it syncs with GMail contacts).
Funnier, I think, is Nick Cage-ifying the internet. Nick Cage just is that je ne sais quoi that makes a joke go from funny to cry-laughing funny. Click here to download an extension for Google Chrome that will literally change every picture on the internet into pictures of Nick Cage. Your coworkers will love it. I promise.
Happy Weeding Out Your Weak Relationships Day, everyone!
