I totally agree.
I have been known to play jokes at work. It is just too much fun. For me.
You would never guess I'm such a menace.
But I am. There is a glimmer in the eye, you see?
Years ago, I decided to play a joke on a previous supervisor on MY birthday. I had heard whispers that people were planning to prank me for my birthday. So, I thought, I'll strike first! Bwa, ha, ha!
Anyone who knows me should know that this is a compliment if I will spend time to play a joke on you. I thought my old boss knew that.
He was quite the family guy with pictures all over his office of his gorgeous little ones - twins! - and his wife.
He hated cats.
On his birthday, I waited around until he was gone to break into his office.
I had printed some really, really great pictures of cats off the Internet with a color printer. Pictures like these:
I am not a total menace. I CAREFULLY removed his family pictures - every last one - out of the frames and CAREFULLY placed them in a ziploc bag and CAREFULLY placed the bag in my desk.
Then, I put the cat pictures in all of his frames around his office.
I came into work the next morning, giddy, excited for the absurd hilarity to cause loud laughing and guffaws from everyone, including my boss.
The front secretary was near tears. "Kristy, he's looking for you. He is so upset. I didn't even want him to know that I knew about it!"
"What?! Are you kidding me?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No! He's pissed!"
I was incredulous, and I felt bad that I had involved our poor, dear secretary in the heinous act.
I went to my office, still not believing anything had gone wrong. Who wouldn't think that filling a cat-hater's picture frames with ridiculous pictures of cats wasn't funny?!
He was there to talk to me. He shut the door.
He explained how precious his family pictures were to him. "Of course I know that! Look!" I exclaimed as I got out the CAREFULLY saved pictures and explained just how careful I had been. It didn't help.
He said he felt that someone was intending to be a menace to him. Someone was "threatening him." Giving him the what-for, if you will.
To that, I exclaimed, "No, no, no! Don't you think it's funny that I put CATS in your picture frames? You hate cats! Ha, ha..." I trailed off, as he was not softening and did not laugh along.
Wow, the dude was TOTALLY serious.
In spite of myself, I went on, "Don't you realize what today is?"
He looked at me blankly.
"It's my birthday!" I said.
He looked at me blankly.
"I thought you guys were planning to prank me on my birthday, and I thought I would do this before you had a chance to do anything to me! That's all!" I said.
He seemed to soften his demeanor at that a little. I apologized profusely. He managed to say, "It's ok." I CAREFULLY replaced the pictures.
But I kept the pictures of the cats. I'd take them out every once in a while and have a good fucking laugh.
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This week's RemembeRED memoir prompt at Write on Edge was to recall a prank that did not have the results you intended.
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To my bloggy friends who noticed my absence as of late, I was on Spring Break. But, I'm back. And doing the best I can.
