New secretary (second day on the job) answers telephone and is told in official tones, "This is the phone company. We are testing a new circuit wiring scheme in your offices. Please keep everyone off the phones for the next 10 minutes. We will be verifying the correct wiring of your system by passing hot steam through the wires. Instruct your employees to place their phones on the floor, or, better yet, wrap them in towels to avoid scalding themselves. We will advise you when the tests are complete." After momentary panic, the secretary begins a frenzied "Paul Revere" routine, running from desk to desk while glancing frequently at her watch. Just as the 10 minutes are about up, she bursts into her boss's office (while he is in the midst of an important long-distance call) and, screaming, grabs the receiver from his hand and flings the whole phone under his desk.

Another good prank involves the lunch room where opaque plastic salt and pepper shakers with pop-off tops are used. They should be the ones with lids that could be pried off with a knife blade if you were persistent enough.

PREPARATION (in a restroom nearby):

Empty salt ( or pepper) from a previously 'acquired' container and fill about 1/3 full with concentrated lemon juice.

Place a thin tissue across the opening, poke it down a bit to form a depression, and fill the depression with about a teaspoon of baking soda.

Cover (from the inside) the holes of the top with tape of the appropriate color.

Replace top on container and trim visible tissue from around the top.

After discretely placing the shaker on your table (or near you), observe the next person to use the shaker. (S)He will shake lightly at first, then harder as nothing comes out. Due to the breakdown of the tissue and the pressure resulting from the classic acid/base reaction, the top will pop off (quite spectacularly) amidst a shower of foam. Your victim (as will as everyone around) should have quite a reaction, since one does not usually observe this type of behavior in a salt (pepper) shaker!

Does the person that you want to get even with drink red wine? If so, have I got one for you! Get yourself some Neutral Red, a water soluble, crystalline, red dye. Mix some into the persons wine and wait for them to take a leak. (Neutral Red comes out as red as it goes in, and people have a tendency to get really nervous when they answer nature calls.)

There was a 'witchy' old lady next door that was constantly complaining about everything and everyone in the neighborhood. After one really good round about kids and pets messing up her spotless front yard, the neighbors planned what turned out to be a better joke than they originally thought. Juvenile as they all were, they planned to write some dirty words in her meticulously-groomed front lawn with some kind of powder that would stand out. The only thing they could find was some Ortho Super-Gro Lawn Food (white powdery stuff). They wrote the message in the dead of night, and next morning it was bold and white for the world to see. The kicker came after. She came out, saw the graffiti, and immediately grabbed a hose and watered it off, thus activating the lawn fertilizer. Her lawn had those words there for 2 years!

This practical joke is hearsay. A fellow student some years ago related the following. Apparently another student was a bit of a bragger. His favorite topic was his car, and one sub-topic was the terrific gas mileage (pre-metric) it got.

So it began one evening. Fill up a one-gallon container of gas each night and pour it into the victim's gas tank. Wait for the story each day to get better and better. Repeat until it cannot be taken any more. I believe 2 weeks was sufficient.

Finally the moment (days) of truth. Each night for 2 weeks, the effect was reversed, and one gallon of gas was removed from the victim's tank. It was amazingly effective at reducing some of the stories. I suspect the truth was never revealed to the victim.