I need some help. As many of you may know (and many of you may not), I live in a monastery. It is tradition for the younger sisters to play a joke on the some of the older sisters each year. As the "oldest" young sister at home, it is my "duty" to plan this. But I am totally lacking in creative ideas. I was wondering if you anybody out there had any brilliant ideas.
These are the stipulations: It can't cost money. We don't have any (literally). It can't be wet or messy. We have access to both bedrooms and offices of people who we want to "get" but we can't mess around too much with bedrooms. In the past, we have shortsheeted beds, filled the rooms with stuffed animals (from a giveaway pile) and totally moved two offices.
Thoughts? Ideas? Stories of brilliant pranks you've previously pulled?
posted
You just made my day. I would have never imagined a scenario where a nun (novice?) would be asking for prank advice. I think this will really help me to overcome my fear of nuns.
posted
I changed all the sound effects on a roommate's computer once. That was inexpensive. Windows XP doesn't seem to have influenced quite as many people to create sound schemes for their computers, but it can still be done.
The roommate in question had a sound scheme that was driving me nuts. Imagine hearing Scooby Doo go "Huh?" every time the computer announces an error or asks a question.
I'm presuming, given that you're posting, that computers are fairly commonplace at this monastery.
This could range from the hard-to-notice-at-first (a changing the "click" sound to a bird chirp) to the impossible to ignore (a two minute sound clip that plays on boot.)
ADD: with a little work, it's easy to make such a change completely reversible with a single batch file. (A carefully hidden batch file, of course.)
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Nice suggestions so far, keep them coming. Mrs. M, jokes in the monastery have been going on for a LONG time around here.
Note to add: Last we also changed someone's computer keyboard from English to French... this meant that about 90% of what they typed came out as it should. Some letters and symbols, however were reversed. We sat there for quite some time watching as she (who considers herself an excellent) typist attempted to retype things before she finally realized something was wrong with the computer.
Posts: 340 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I always imagined monasteries as being cold, made of stone, and having no electricity.
If you do have computers one thing you can do is mess with their word program. You can set it so that everytime you type a word it is replaced with another word.
IE, everytime they type a certain word it says, "INTERNAL ERROR" or "SYSTEM UNSTABLE--REBOOT NOW." Pick a word like "the" to modify.
I had all sorts of fun doing that on my boss's computer. There are also free programs that will randomly make your computer makes noises. I liked "the flatulator" on computerpranks.com.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
lem, Monasteries (at least most in America) are anything but cold and made of stone. We have several public computers. Typically we don't use them much for leisure... I normally don't get to spend this much time just surfing the Internet, but I have been sick and isolated for several days so I have permission to play around alittle more than normal.
Love the autocorrect ideas. The sisters we are pulling jokes on this year don't have much computer sense and would have much difficulty figuring it out!
Posts: 340 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I avoided going to general search sites because I had to wade through too many inappropriate jokes.
Posts: 340 | Registered: Mar 2003
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If you do replace sounds in windows, remember that many Homestar Runner/Strongbad sound sets are available at homestarrunner.com.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Fill one room with balloons. (I mean fill) This is, if you can get your hands on balloons.
It was unclear if you can get to the clothes of the older nuns, but you could hang them all up, or fold them all away, inside out.
Remove all doors.
Semi-Appropriate Jokes
If you could get a small amount of money, run an add selling the Monastery. Have them call the older sisters for details.
Borrow (ok, steal) a for-sale sign and put it in front of the monastery.
Put up a notice that the weekly Nun-Strip-Poker night has been moved to Wedensday.
Totally Innappropriate
Streaking.
Use street/gang slang in responce to the sermon. ("Turn now to Second Corinthians." "Yah baby, that's the Shnizzle!" and "Let us pray," "Amen $#@$#@$@#@$#")
(Note to self, I really need to work on my street/gang slang.)
Replace recorded background music with Metallica downloaded from the internet.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Tom, actually the last one's not so bad. Maybe not Metallica, but at breakfast, (which is always silent) we have music and I could EASILY switch that one out. Also, selling the monastery would be quite entertaining! Sr. Kat
Posts: 340 | Registered: Mar 2003
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You guys are practically indistinguishable, what, with both of you using that darn underscore.
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Frisco: You guys are practically indistinguishable, what, with both of you using that darn underscore.
That's like on my mission about every 10th person we met would look at us, read our name tags and say, "Elder Smith. . . Elder Jennings. . . Are you two brothers?"
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
MS Word has an auto-correct feature, which is usually set to correct common typos such as changing teh to the. You can make it change anything to anything else though, which is wicked and maddening. Make it change the number 4 to 14, or the word that to which. You might not notice at first, but soon everything sounds funny, and I can't figure out why.
Either that, or give out her phone number as a teen chat line.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Great ideas, all. Keep them coming. I need to have several workable ones before I go talk to the others to actually make a decision. Kat
Posts: 340 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Hit the Print Screen button while the desktop is up with no programs running. Use an image editing program to save the image somewhere.
No make a folder on the desktop and move every icon you can in to it. Move the taskbar to the opposite edge of the screen and hide it.
Then set the screenshot of the desktop that you took as the wall paper. This will make the desktop look like it did before (almost).
One problem is that sometimes icons move on the screen when you move other icons. If you play with the settings, you can overcome this.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Something my roommate did to me once that was funny. He stole my bed and put it up on the Loft of one of my neighbors. I'm sure the look on my face when I walked into my room and found that my bed was gone was priceless...though probably not as funny as the look on my face when I went next door and saw that my bed was on a loft 6 feet in the air.
Then there was the prank I played on my roommate. I hit print screen which made a copy of his desktop. I then went into microsoft paint and hit past. This pasted a copy of the desktop into paint. I then saved it as a bmp file. I then set that bmp file as his background and hid all of his icons. The point? Well, since the image was taken before his icons were hidden, it looked like they were still there...but it reality it was only a picture of his icons. He would try to click them, but of course nothing would happen. His frustration was very amusing.
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
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posted
Maybe take the entire contents of the room, and set them up exactly the same in another location. Then everyone just acts as though it's always been that way. "Where are you going? Your room is 14. No, 12's the janitorial closet. Have you been getting enough sleep?"
My favorite practical jokes involve everyone pretending that nothing odd is going on. Once, all my roommates picked a word, and randomly whispered it as they were leaving the room, or washing the dishes, so I always though I heard them say something, but they told me that they hadn't said anything. It took me a couple of days before I was sure I heard them. A very odd experience.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
I think selling the monestary is an awesome idea. And if you are in a small town, you might be able to get a local newspaper to run the ad for free with a little wheedling. "For Sale" signs are easy to paint.
You could also trade names. This requires a little practice so everyone responds only to the other person's name. Then when someone asks a question of one person, a different person answers. Do it with enough people, and act like nothing's wrong, and it's funny (at least it was in grade school.)
Switch the salt and sugar on the table.
Put loops of tape on the bottom of all the older sisters' shoes so they stick to the floor when they walk. Only good for a few seconds, but funny.
Make some really nasty tasting cookies and very sweetly pass them around, then look surprised when they say they taste bad (or watch them try to be polite!) Have a few that you made that taste good so you can say, "Here, let me try one... No, nothing wrong with them that I can taste!"
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Prank call their office number using a fax machine.
You could do a variation of the Monastery for Sale idea and post signs for a garage sale. Tons of people will show up.
Replace the salt in the salt shaker with sugar. Replace the sugar in the sugar bowl with salt.
Paint all the bars of soap in the place with clear nail polish. They won't suds up anymore but it will be difficult to see why.
Superglue the dishes and/or silverware to the table.
Butter all the doorknobs.
Who has to cook? Remove all the labels from the cans of food in the pantry. Better yet, steam them all loose and reapply them to the wrong cans.
Unscrew all the lightbulbs in all the fixtures and lamps. Hide the candles and flashlights.
My favorite one: If their doors swing inward, cover their doorframes with several sheets of newspaper, top to bottom leaving a small gap at the top. Using the gap, fill the space between the door and the newspaper barrier with small crumpled balls of paper. When they open the door, all the paperballs will fall inward and will make a big mess.
Posts: 1319 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Once a monk from Florida answered my online ad offering 3 old chickens and a mean rooster for free and told me to deliver them to a lady in the senior citizen apartments in town and leave them on her porch.
Posts: 1379 | Registered: Feb 2002
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similar to Dag's take the screenshot of the desktop, but put in some kind of error message, and then unplug the keyboard and mouse. I actually ended up being throttled by one of our floormates sophomore year even though I wasn't the one who had actually pulled it off, but it was well worth it Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
You HAVE to go with some variation of what Dag said.
Messing with wallpapers to look like desktops and/or other windows or programs is HILARIOUS.
I used to work with a finance company, and someone else was going to be filling in for me.
I pulled up the PC Anywhere "Waiting for connection" window and took a screenshot. (PC Anywhere is a program that allows someone to remotely access a computer.)
Then I altered the text on the window so it read "Connected" at the top, and "Transferring all money to (Competitor's Company)." I made it the wallpaper. I didn't have to alter anything else because the icons already covered the icons in the wallpaper.
Since the cancel button did nothing (since it was just the wallpaper), they kept rebooting and making tons of calls--great stuff.
If you haven't played the "make the wallpaper look like a messed up desktop or window" card yet, it's pure gold.
------
As for the salt/sugar suggestion, the best way to mess with somebody's head is this:
You get the clear salt and pepper shakers with metal tops. You unscrew the tops off of both and take a napkin and drape it over the tops of both. Make a little divit in the napkin over the tops, deep enough to hold something, but not deep enough that you can see it when you put the lid back on.
Then put some salt in the napkin over the pepper and some pepper in the napkin over the salt. Then screw the lids back on, and tear off any paper that's still visible.
To me, it's the perfect joke. You're not actually ruining anybody's food, since the amounts are relatively small, but you get that great "What the heck?" moment when they realize things aren't happening quite how they should.
Posts: 241 | Registered: Nov 2001
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- Sorry I missed you. I stopped by to chat and commend you on a job well done. Hope to catch you on the next leg of my trip.
- sign it from Pope Benedict.
Do this daily.
Every time she leaves her room, drop a note.
Insert a page into her Bible with various famous non-Biblical quotations. Then everyone start using them.
Well, like it says in the Bible, "never give a sucker an even break."
or,
As the good book says "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
When she asks where it says that in Bible, refer her to the page number where you inserted the quotations. "Why page 357.5, of course!"
Keep a ready stock on hand to replenish.
Insert pictures of some of the senior nuns into various religious art around the monastery. Sr. Julia smiling at the last supper...etc.
make up a rosary with one too many beads in one of the decades. Substitute it for a regular rosary...
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Hit the Print Screen button while the desktop is up with no programs running. Use an image editing program to save the image somewhere.
No make a folder on the desktop and move every icon you can in to it. Move the taskbar to the opposite edge of the screen and hide it.
Then set the screenshot of the desktop that you took as the wall paper. This will make the desktop look like it did before (almost).
One problem is that sometimes icons move on the screen when you move other icons. If you play with the settings, you can overcome this.
quote:Originally posted by TheGrimace: similar to Dag's take the screenshot of the desktop, but put in some kind of error message, and then unplug the keyboard and mouse.
This reminded me of another one that we pulled off in the computer lab.
Hook a wireless keyboard up to a computer, but make it look like the normal keyboard is still there...when they try to type things, nothing will happen...but you can type whatever you want. People will freak out when they see random letters showing up on their screen.
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Hit the Print Screen button while the desktop is up with no programs running. Use an image editing program to save the image somewhere.
No make a folder on the desktop and move every icon you can in to it. Move the taskbar to the opposite edge of the screen and hide it.
Then set the screenshot of the desktop that you took as the wall paper. This will make the desktop look like it did before (almost).
One problem is that sometimes icons move on the screen when you move other icons. If you play with the settings, you can overcome this.
In another version of this, you can right click on the desktop, go to "Arrange Icons By ..." and uncheck "Show Desktop Icons" after you take the screenshot and set the wallpaper. Then you don't have to go through the trouble of moving things back later
posted
Dag, Love the idea! Too bad one of our very older sisters already pulled a version of this quite on accident (we're still not quite sure how). They often find ways to inadvertently do great stuff to the computers that only the younger ones of us actually understand (and, of course, know how to fix).
Bob, I love the Bible idea. Relatively easy to do.
Posts: 340 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I have no wonderful prank ideas [i just don't see ours, at camp and now work, being appreciated - ransom notes for stuffed animals, hiding beds in rafters or in closets (obviously not an option), decorating an office with 60th birthday 'stuff' when someone's turning 43, etc...] but why did katdog42's *kneeling on the floor* joke (i think, no i hope, a joke...) go unnoticed?
I thought that was quality.
Alright - carry on with the prank fodder... ; ) : )
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Figured as much. And a good one at that (having grown up Catholic in a 'Jewish' town we got joked on and made jokes to that effect all the time)... ; )
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
For April fool's day last year, a friend and I printed out wedding invitations for a couple of our roommates (they weren't even dating.) As you're a group of nuns, I'll have to let you decide if that would be particularly ironic or incredibly tasteless, but its pretty easy and if you have printers it can be done cheap. We spent the morning driving around delivering them to all their friends and then stuck them in with our mail for them to recieve.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Those computer ideas are great - I especially like the desktop screenshot and the Word typo replacement ideas.
I'm told that I'm much too serious and have a dull sense of humour, but here it goes:
- Hide every chair in the monastery. If you can't hide them, arrange them in a pyramid in the lawn/courtyard/garden. Reams of toilet paper are a plus.
- Alternatively, wrap all furniture in aluminium foil.
- Replace every Bible in the monastery with a copy of Atlas Shrugged.
- Remove the following keys from every keyboard: Control, Alt, Delete. Unless the older sisters use macs, in which case you shouldn't play practical jokes on them.
- Find a clock with an extremely loud tick, or a digital one with multiple alarms. Find a way to drop it into a cavity wall of a bedroom, as close to the head of the bed as possible.
- Collect those black and white Abercrombie ads of muscular half-clad men, and randomly insert them into Bibles to tempt the older sisters. (Is that a sin?)
- Replace washing powder with flour.
- Put red food colouring in the hot water tank.
- Do something which involves eggs on windows or in hair.
posted
Leave copies of The Da Vinci Code in all the senior Sisters bedrooms, then leave a note saying that the Archbishop and his Exorcist are coming in response to this.
Okay, that may be a little tacky.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
You could write messages in bathroom mirrors using soap. Hard to see in normal conditions, but when the mirror fogs up, you can read the messages.
"This is Dan Brown, the Pope has me locked in the cellar. Send help!"
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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