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The Greatest Trick the Devil Ever Pulled Was Convincing the World He Didn't Exist

By Tater Barley Banks | Posted Under Comment Diversions | Comments (15)

imagesdevil.jpg

Gotta had it to Ol’ Scratch, that’s a pretty good trick, all right. And having been one-upped pretty much since the Creation, we lesser devils have had to content ourselves with mere pranks ever since.

Here’s the greatest one this devil ever pulled:

Well before I met the outstanding example of feminine wiles and pulchritude who would become Mrs. Tater, I had a ring from a broken engagement, sitting in a dresser drawer.

This was during my horndog dating phase. And one of the horns I was dogging was a girl who went to a college in central Pennsylvania. She shared an apartment with three other girls I had met. I lived a couple hours away.

One weekend about a month into the relationship, I had the datee to my place for an overnight stay, and in the course of talking about the things people talk about, I revealed this previous engagement to the datee and mentioned I had this ring. I was describing it (the stone had an unusual shape), and in a “what the hell” moment got it out to show her. She slipped it on her finger and it was a perfect fit.

A nefarious plot began to unspool in my mind.

“Wouldn’t it be funny …” I said to her, and she agreed it would, so we did.

When I returned her to her apartment that Sunday, she had the ring on. A couple of her roomies are there, and they don’t notice anything until the datee goes to (nervously, apparently) light a cigarette and one roomie says, “Look how her hands are shaking,” and the other says, “Hell yeah, look at her finger.”

And there was, as they say, much rejoicing. And some mild questioning.

But you two have only known each other for, what, a month?

“We just decided we were meant for each other” is always a plausible explanation.

So the rejoicing went on for maybe an hour and wedding plans were being formalized and guest lists drawn up and presents bought and the cake and the dress ordered when it began to dawn on the datee and I that we hadn’t really planned how long we were going to let this charade play out, or how to end it. So we sneaked a few moments in a bedroom to discuss it and …

The datee picked up the phone and pantomimed making a call to a friend of hers, ostensibly to reveal the good news but in fact to announce loudly, “You’ll never believe what my fool roomates fell for.”

This incident ended with us barricaded in a bedroom for a few minutes.

Good times, good times.

On this weekend of tricks (and, if you’re really REALLY good and Tater likes you, treats!), what’s the greatest prank you ever pulled, or had pulled on you?









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Comments

It wasn't a prank exactly, but it was so simple and effective that I was proud.

My mother is like a cat in that she gets "evening crazies." Like, she just starts giggling and losing her mind every night. And if you even raise an eyebrow she screams "Don't look at me!" and starts cackling until she cries and it's just so easy to get her worked up. This is referred to as "Connie Time."

Anyway, my gf and I were at my parents' house and it was full on Connie Time. She demanded that we leave because we were making fun of her (true) and being horrible girls (false). I can't help but needle her so she starts walking away, I follow her. She runs into a bedroom and slams the door. We yell out "Fine whatever, we're leaving!" and slam the front door. And then tiptoe back to the hallway and wait.

Five minutes later, she opens the door, sees us and screams "HOLY FUCKING SHIT, SHARON!!!!" and almost falls over.

I've never laughed so hard in my entire life.

So, not a prank. But I definitely fooled her.

Posted by: MyySharona at October 30, 2010 6:20 PM

In my highschool psychology class we wanted to test how people react in emergency situations. So, since our classroom was on the second floor and there was a science class below we decided they would be our subjects. We dressed a dummy and had a student hiding in the bushes nearby (with appropriate looking dirt and fake blood). We dropped said dummy, student yelled, stashed dummy to the side and laid on the ground in a horrid and painful looking position. We all screamed from above. People from the science class panicked (one nearly passed out)--the teacher freaked and jumped out the window to "save" the student and was screaming for 911. Um...it was a little too realistic. Our class got talked to by administration and our teacher almost got fired especially for not checking out her little experiment with anybody before. Good times, heh.

Posted by: Sar at October 30, 2010 7:31 PM

I was working for the Facilities/Maintenance department at a large local mall when a few of us got together with a couple of the Security guys to scare the fecal matter out of one particular security guard no one liked. You know the type- no sense of humor, takes everything seriously, delusions of grandeur about his job. Stereotypical mall cop.

One the back side of the mall was a sort of man-made canyon that ran between two of the larger stores. There were two turns which prevented seeing one end of the alley from the other. It was about 200 feet long, 15 feet wide, with 30-foot-tall concrete walls on each side. Several emergency exits opening into it- including one from the main mall area. The security guys had to walk down this alley once every hour after the mall closed to make sure the local homeless or similar riff-raff weren't lurking down there or breaking in, or something.

After dark one winter evening, we "fixed" a couple of the lights in the alley to make it extra dark, then got ready for our victim. We had procured some crappy clothing from Goowill, a blow-up doll from a porn shop, and a gallon or so of pig blood from a local farm, and went up onto the roof of the three-storey mall over the end of that long, dark alley.

It was epic. We suspended our dressed-up blow-up doll with ropes about ten feet over the doorway at the end of the alley, and poured the gooey pig blood all over it. We could hear the steady dripping of the blood as it dropped onto the pavement below, and so could our victim. He got out his flashlight and apparently only saw a puddle near the emergency exit, so he walked almost directly under the blood-drenched blow-up doll before he looked up for the source of the smelly puddle.

Then we dropped it.

The scream was deafening. He was so scared that he missed the turn in the alley and ran full-tilt into the wall.

That's what got us in trouble, by the way. He messed up his face on the wall, so most of us were let go after we'd cleaned up the mess.

Totally worth it.

Posted by: Archvillain at October 30, 2010 8:26 PM

I threw a Reverse Surprise Party for a friend once. I sent an email to her and all of our friends to invite them all over to my place for her birthday party. Then, I sent a follow up email to everyone BUT her, asking only a handful people to show up at the previously established time, and the rest to come as a group 3 hours later.

When the Birthday Girl arrived, it was only me, my roommates, her best friend, and a couple of kind of randoms (to throw her off the scent.) More than a dozen expected people were missing. I made fake phone calls to all these people in Birthday Girl's earshot asking why they weren't there and gamely accepting their excuses. Meanwhile, my roommates were plying her full of liquor and making her feel TERRIBLE about her life choices up to that point.

Then, I got a call that the group had arrived. I told the party that it was a taxi to take us to a bar, so we all got our coats and marched downstairs. On the way down, the Birthday Girl told me that she didn't care that no one showed up, she was fine without them, no big deal (meanwhile, she's clearly choking back tears.) Then, as we exited my building, *SURPRISE!* A big group of people were waiting to celebrate her birthday with her. She never forgot that birthday.

Posted by: The Wandering Parakeet at October 30, 2010 8:39 PM

Huh. Everyone else must be out trick-or-treating.

,daughter once stashed a fake hand/arm thing in the dish cabinet. When I opened the cabinet door the thing fell on the counter. I about had a heart attack. (Seriously, I have a heart doctor.) Scared the bejaysus out of me.

Posted by: , at October 30, 2010 11:36 PM

I was hoping to read some good stuff on here!

Posted by: MyySharona at October 31, 2010 1:43 AM

Tater, my story is just like yours. almost.

The first part takes place my sophmore year of college when the girl I'm dating, decides that we should pull a prank and put it on facebook that we're engaged, because our friends think that we should. So we do. and it's quite funny, five minutes in, I get 5 phone calls, 3 texts and numerous facebook comments and messages, all congratulating me. The only people who don't believe it are my house mates who actually tell me to put her on speaker phone so they can ask us both questions....we make them believe it, and I go back home. 3 hours later we drop it from facebook, because it was a great joke.

Part two of the story takes place last October, middle of for that matter. The girl I want to date, have been crushing on for a long time (I'm a senior at this point in college and 22) calls me at midnight to come out and talk to her. we're close, and she wants to appologize because she was acting a tad bitchy to me that past week, because of....well...various things (ex and all that who is a jerk). She wants to get back at him, so I just casually say, "okay, date me." She agreed to it, so we put it on facebook that we were dating, which the following responses were "well, it's about time." with the exception of one (now ex) friend of mine who thought I was wasting my time and stopped being my friend because of this prank, (this coming from a girl who was still sleeping with her ex...) because she thought I should get over myself. Anyhow, fastforward a week and she(the fake girlfriend) and I are doing a ASC survivor thingy (how we both got chosen is beyond me, as I entered my name as a joke, and she was picked randomly). we're not allowed to sit by each other, because of potential "hijinks" that might ensue. anyhow, she's talking about how when she gets engaged, she wants the guy to get up on a table or something in the middle of a cafeteria or something and ask her to marry. So I joking say, "okay, I'll do it on Tuesday." Now there's a live feed going on, and at 2 am in the morning, I don't know whose listening or watching, aside from the watch tech and the activities sponsor to make sure we don't do anything stupid, at this point I leave cause I have a headache and need to take meds, so I'm first out. anyhow. that next tuesday, I wake her up from a nap, we had "broke up" that previous friday, beacause it was time to end the prank, which I was okay with, and went to dinner, we always went to ere lunch or dinner together when we had the chance. and we walk into our dining establishment to the sound of people clapping and cheering. we both have no idea what's going on. her reaction (which is what she has done her entire life) is to bolt. I tell her we have to face the music, "there's music involved?" she's never heard that term before, and I let her know that no, it's just a phrase. so we get into the area and head for the food line which is conveniently separated from the dining area and decide to hide there for a while, but even the servers are all looking at us like they're expecting us to say something. one of my friends comes in and asks me if I know what's going on, and tell him no and ask him if he does, "well no, not exactly, but from what I've heard, you are proposing to Katie."

so we go sit down at one of the two available tables left, at this point it is 6:15 pm and there is only standing room left. We sit and talk for a few minutes and finally I get up on a chair and motion for people to quiet down. It takes one of my friends and a few others of my associates to quiet the place down and I give a speech about whatever they've heard is wrong, that I am not proposing, that never happened, and get on with your lives. I then add that anyone who is videotaping this for facebook or youtube will also stop now and if any footage is found, their lives are forfeit. five people standing near the entrance all grown and put away their cameras. People all thought I was going to say something and one actually shouted, "so she said yes," which had me and a couple others once again trying to restore order. one of the dining room attendants later looked at me and sighed, saying that this was the best fun she'd had in a long time.

So yeah. that's mine.

Posted by: LordNinja at October 31, 2010 2:58 AM

I went to jail once and didn't use my "free phone call" to call anyone. Seriously. The cops would ask me every few hours, "Do you want to make your phone call now?" I would lift my head up from a book and politely reply with, "Nope."

I had half of my friends and immediate family convinced I was dead for nearly 32 hours.

Posted by: DeistBrawler at October 31, 2010 1:26 PM

Called a friend of mine (back in high school mumblety-some years ago). His mother answered and said he wasn't home.
So I asked her to let him know that the package had arrived.
Both parents were waiting for him, convinced he was in some sort of drug ring, whne he got home that night. Eventually, they all figured out it had been me on the phone.
His mother was never really nice to me again after that.

Posted by: theFatman at October 31, 2010 3:10 PM

I don't know if this qualifies as a prank, but it was the first thing that came to mind. I had a longish layover in Dallas, so I decided to get a beer. However, I was only 20. I figured I had nothing to lose, so I just went and ordered a beer at Chili's or some place like that. The bar tender asked for my ID. I hadn't planned this out. It was pretty much stream of consciousness. The conversation went something like this:

"Wait, how old are you?"
"21."
"No...you're 20."
"No, I'm 21. You subtract the birth year from this year."
"Yeah, and I get 20."
"Yeah, but then you add a 1 because there was no year zero."
(I shit you not, just say it with confidence. She ponders this, so I keep going)
"Yeah, so it's this year minus the birth year, which is 20, plus the one because there was no year zero. So you get 21."
(pondering...pondering...doesn't wanna look stupid)
"Oh! OK, yeah."

The people next to me at the bar gave me a look as if to say "nice job" while she poured the beer. I think she wasn't sure about the whole thing, so she asked another bar tender to check it out. He claimed I was 20, and I agreed (I couldn't fool both of them).

So, I didn't even get the beer. But my friends still refer to it as the "no year zero" story.

Posted by: pissant at October 31, 2010 3:57 PM

My dad once convinced me I needed to write an extra 10 page paper for thr high school magnet program i was applying for and was only 3 hours from the deadline. I was soooo relieved it was a prank I couldn't even get mad.

Posted by: McSquish at October 31, 2010 8:08 PM

I'm more the prank victim than prankster. Like This Mortal Coil says, 'It'll end in tears'. More wet willies than tears, actually. And you're the freak for letting out a yelp when someone sticks a old, spittle-covered digit in your ear as a 'birthday present' to someone else. The prank setup doesn't even matter, it's always in pursuit of the wet willie. I must have had fetching ears in university.

Posted by: Jo 'Mama' Besser at October 31, 2010 9:35 PM

This is not entirely inspired, but it worked:

Freshman year in college. I'm 900 miles from home. I wait until about 1am my time, 11pm my parents' time on a Saturday night a few months into the semester. I call, stifling sobs, and tell my Mother that I've been arrested. I get the words, "Mom, I'm o.k., but I'm in jail" out of my mouth and she starts hyperventilating. She repeats "jail" 3 times.

The funny thing is, I can hear my step-father in the background after the third "jail" laughing his ass off and saying "what the hell are we going to do about it?"

My Mom pauses, and we're all silent.

Me: "I'm not."
Mom: "what?"
Me: "I'm not in jail. [beat beat beat] but if I were you shoulda done something"
Mom: "fuck you you little shit"
Step dad: "HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA"


Posted by: jack at October 31, 2010 10:55 PM

My older sister, who has lousy timing, a deficient sense of humor, and very little sense of how others will react to anything, told my parents she was pregnant one morning at the breakfast table, back when we were teenagers, just to get a rise out of them. "I'm pregnant! (very short pause) Ha ha, just kidding!" Only no-one could hear the "just kidding" part over the shrieks of our Mexican Catholic mother and bellowing of our Mexican, even-more-Catholic father. By the time everyone had calmed down about an hour later, both my mother and sister had swollen, blotchy faces from all the crying, and my father was beet-red, clutching his chest and breathing hard. I stayed silent throughout the screaming; sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.

Posted by: PDamian at November 1, 2010 1:10 AM

Our freshman year of college my best friend and I stole a dorm-mates towel while he was in the shower, Scotch Guarded both sides liberally, and put the towel back on the hook. Our dorm-mate came storming down the hall shivering, dripping, and fuming. He could not figure out why his towel wouldn't absorb any water. We nearly died laughing.

Posted by: androstarr at November 1, 2010 12:16 PM