When little kids get a present they don’t like, it’s easy to tell: They start opening another present right away—or begin wailing because they wanted a new video game, not a book about the history of the vacuum cleaner. Grown-ups are different. They’re trained to be polite. They say things like, “Well, this certainly looks interesting!” or “How did you ever come up with this idea?!” That’s why you should pull this prank on a grown-up—parents, aunts or uncles, or grandparents. Do this prank when it’s your victim’s birthday or during a holiday like Christmas or Hanukkah that involves gifts. And remember the most important part: Make sure you keep a straight face! The second most important part? Getting your victim a real gift, too.
what you need
* A really stupid gift (more about that to follow)
* Wrapping paper
* Scissors
* Tape
* A card
what you do
THE SETUP
1 Before a holiday or your victim’s birthday, search your house for a gift that the person would never want. Here are some ideas to get you in the spirit:
* For your grandmother: an action figure or a used paintbrush
* For your grandfather: a frilly umbrella or a half-empty bottle of shampoo
* For your mother or aunt: a bottle of after-shave or slightly used men’s shoes
* For your father or uncle: a stuffed animal or a box of crayons
* For anyone: a potato, a roll of paper towels, an empty plastic water bottle, one elastic hair tie, a toothbrush, or a tube of toothpaste
* If you can’t find something at home, and you don’t mind spending a little money, go to a store that sells cheap stuff and buy something completely ridiculous.
2 Wrap up the gift and add a ribbon if you have one.
3 Write your name on the card so your victim knows it’s from you.
PULL THE PRANK
1 Present your gift to your victim at the appropriate occasion. When the person opens the gift, you must keep a straight face. Try to look sincere and pleased, like you picked out something very special. You can even say in a hopeful voice, “Do you like it?” if you can manage it without cracking up.
2 Before the disappointment really sinks in, give your victim their actual gift.
VERY IMPORTANT PRANKS
V.I.P.
Loony Clooney
If you are a pro at pranking, like actor George Clooney, you can keep a gift gag ruse going for a long time. Clooney once noticed a crummy old painting in a pile of garbage. He took the artwork home, cleaned it off, and signed his name at the bottom so it looked like he was the artist. Then he gave it to a good friend as a present. His friend put the painting on his wall to be polite, and it ended up staying there for two years before Clooney finally confessed to the hoax.
Gags for Sale
In 1904 a young man named Søren Sørensen was working as a dye salesman in New Jersey. His company had a problem: An ingredient in their dye gave people sneezing fits. But Sørensen didn’t see a problem—he saw an opportunity. He tested some of the powder on a group of his friends, and soon they were all sneezing—and laughing. They asked for their own supplies to use on their friends. Sørensen quickly started bottling the powder and selling it as a prank under the name Cachoo Sneeze Powder. People loved it. In the first year, he sold 150,000 bottles—which gave him the money he needed to make other gags. He changed his name to Soren Sorensen Adams, and his new company, S. S. Adams, started supplying itching powder, snake-in-a-can pranks, and the bestselling Dribble Glass (that caused victims to spill their drink all over their shirt) to pranksters across the country. In 1928 he invented the Joy Buzzer, a tiny wind-up buzzer you hold in the palm of your hand and use to shock someone when you shake hands. It was a huge seller back then—and still is today.
During his long career, Adams invented more than 600 gags. He said his approach was to work with “an ordinary, everyday object, which is around the house.” The company Adams founded still sells many of his ingenious inventions, and some of them inspired pranks in this book. You can make your own version of the Dribble Glass with a soda can (page 48), fake dog poop (page 52), a prank ice cube (page 90), and fake vomit (page 164).
Cartoonist Louis M. Glackens created illustrations for many of the S. S. Adams Company’s novelties, giving the buyer an idea of how the gag played out.
