What’s more disgusting than finding a fly in your drink? Finding a mouse turd in your drink. This prank is a variation on a classic store-bought gag—a plastic ice cube with an insect inside. It works best if you put the ice cubes in water or a light-colored drink, so the “turds” really stand out.
what you need
* An ice cube tray
* A toothpick (optional)
* About 20 dried currants (Currants look like baby raisins. Look for them near the raisins at the supermarket. If you can’t find them, buy raisins and ask an adult to help you cut them into smaller pieces.)
what you do
THE SETUP
1 Fill an ice cube tray with water. Place it in the freezer and leave it until the ice cubes are half-frozen.
2 Remove the ice cubes from the freezer and use a toothpick or your finger to poke a hole in the top of each one.
3 Drop one or two currants or raisin bits into the hole. They should sink about halfway down.
4 Return the ice cubes to the freezer. When they’re completely frozen, it’s time to pull the prank.
PULL THE PRANK
1 Prepare cold drinks for yourself and your victim. Put regular ice cubes in your drink and put the “special” ice cubes in your victim’s drink.
2 Act really concerned and a little embarrassed when your victim notices the brown stuff in the ice cubes. Say something like, “Oh my gosh, you know we had a mouse problem for a while, but how could the turds have gotten in the ice cube tray?” Or say, “Oh, whatever, I’ll take those!” and spoon the icky ice cubes into your glass.
Alan Abel:
Indecent Animals?
During the 1960s and 1970s, prankster Alan Abel convinced people that hundreds of publicity stunts he made up were true events. One was a campaign to get animals to wear clothes. Abel wrote to several magazines and explained that he wanted to relieve animals of the shame they felt from living life in the nude. To his amazement, magazine editors took him seriously. So Abel kept going with the hoax. He hired an actor to appear on TV talk shows as the president of the campaign. Abel received 40,000 letters of support before Time magazine finally exposed the prank in 1963. Besides entertaining the public, Abel had a message: Don’t believe everything you see, hear, or read.
Intelligence Test:
Do Pranks Make People Smarter?
Scientists are still learning how the human brain works. In 2010, a Polish neuroscientist discovered that pulling pranks can actually make you smarter. Dr. Fran Luschinsky has been studying the effects of pranks on the brain since 1999. Her research shows that people who pull at least one prank a week grow twice as many new brain cells as nonpranksters. They also have higher IQ scores, earn more money, and report being happier.
Luschinsky says that while doing her research, she discovered another way to make your brain cells grow faster that you can do at home. She says you may actually feel your brain getting bigger as you do it. Try it yourself:
1. Take a grapefruit, a large orange, or an apple and balance it on top of your head. This may take some practice.
2. Walk slowly back and forth across the room while saying the word knarp (pronounced KUH-NARP) each time you take a step.
How does this method work? Luschinsky offers a partial explanation: “The vitamins in the fruit are able to enter your brain cells because you are concentrating so hard,” she says, before collapsing in a fit of giggles.
