Do you have a relative or friend who is constantly checking her phone for texts, Tweets, or Facebook updates? Pull this prank on someone who is obsessed with his or her phone and hates to miss a single communication. You’ll need lots of rubber bands, so save them up or buy a bunch at the store.
what you need
* About 20 to 30 rubber bands
what you do
THE SETUP
1 Find a time when you can get access to your victim’s phone without the person seeing.
2 Wrap the rubber bands around the phone until it’s completely covered.
PULL THE PRANK
1 Put the phone back where you found it and stick around to watch the show when the next call comes in. To speed things up, you can dial the victim’s number yoursef.
VERY IMPORTANT PRANKs
V.I.P.
A Phone Prank Fit for a Queen
When the Queen of England needed to set up the voicemail on her cell phone in 2007, she did the natural thing: She asked her tech-savvy grandsons, Harry and William, for help. The two princes also did the natural thing: They pranked their grandmother. Harry and William reportedly recorded an outgoing message on Queen Elizabeth’s phone that said: “Wassup! This is Liz. Sorry I’m away from the throne. For a hotline to Philip, press one. For Charles, press two. And for the corgis, press three.” (Philip is the queen’s husband, Charles is her son, and the corgis are her beloved dogs.)
At first the Queen did not find the joke funny. But then she relaxed and saw the humor—especially when she pictured important people hearing the message. The Queen’s secretary did not agree: He reportedly almost fell off his chair the first time his call was put through to the royal voicemail.
Presidential Pranks
A sense of humor isn’t required to become president, but it doesn’t hurt. Several U.S. presidents pulled impressive pranks when they were kids—and some saw no reason to stop once they made it to the White House.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
When it came to humor, Abraham Lincoln (president from 1860–1865) was more famous for telling funny stories than pulling pranks. But when he was a young man still living at home, he was a trickster. One of his best pranks took advantage of his height: He was 6 feet, 4 inches tall and got teased a lot about it—especially by his stepmother. The story goes that she would tell him he’d better keep his head clean or she’d have to scrub the ceiling. One day when his stepmother was away, Lincoln saw two boys playing barefoot in the mud and got the idea for a prank. He brought the boys back to the house and held them upside down so their muddy feet could touch the ceiling. Then he had them “walk” across the ceiling, making a trail of brown footprints. The story goes that when his stepmother came home, she laughed so hard she couldn’t get mad at him. But she did make Lincoln repaint the ceiling.
Abraham Lincoln
Calvin Coolidge (president from 1923–1929) got his nickname, Silent Cal, by keeping his mouth shut, so it makes sense that his White House pranks were usually wordless. Coolidge had a series of buttons on his desk that he used to summon his staff. He liked to press all the buttons at once and watch people come running from all directions. He also liked to slip out the front door of the White House, press the alarm button near the door, and then go back inside to watch the Secret Service men come running up the walk to find out what was wrong. Coolidge enjoyed this trick so much, he would do it several times in a row. One can only guess how the Secret Service guys felt about it.
Calvin Coolidge
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt (president from 1933–1945), known as FDR, was famous for his sense of humor and he loved to play practical jokes. He got started young, pranking the governesses who took care of him. One of his early tricks involved his governess’s chamber pot (a container people used to keep next to their beds in case they had to pee during the night). Young Franklin sneaked into his governess’s bedroom and put a few spoonfuls of effervescent powder in her chamber pot. Later that night, she used the chamber pot and the powder started to hiss and bubble. The governess woke up everyone in the household, upset that there was something wrong with her.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
HARRY S. TRUMAN
Harry S. Truman (president from 1945–1953) probably pulled more pranks in the White House than any other president. One of his efforts scared the pants off a reporter. Truman was planning a trip to South America. Several newspaper reporters were going with him. Often when people traveled to South America, they had to get painful shots to protect them from yellow fever. One of the reporters, Tony Vaccaro, was terrified of needles. He was overjoyed when he found out he didn’t have to get the shot. Then, suddenly, he was told that the president had decided he did need to get the shot. A terrified Vaccaro was dragged to the White House clinic. He was told to lie down on a couch, facing the wall, with his pants down. (Yellow fever shots were given in the rear end, not the arm.) Seconds later, Vaccaro heard the door open and a familiar voice said, “This won’t hurt you a bit, Tony.” He turned around to see President Truman holding a gigantic hypodermic needle, the kind used by veterinarians on horses. Vaccaro started to scream. Then he saw that the president was smiling, and realized it was all a joke.
Harry S. Truman
Lyndon B. Johnson (president from 1963–1969) loved cars and kept a large collection of them at his Texas ranch. One of his most unusual cars was an Amphicar—it looked like a normal car, but it worked like a boat if you drove it into the water. Johnson realized this vehicle was perfect for pranking guests. He would invite his visitors to take a drive around the ranch with him in the blue convertible. When they got to a steep hill at the edge of a lake, Johnson would let the car pick up speed. Then he would start to yell, “The brakes don’t work! The brakes won’t hold! We’re going in!” As the car entered the lake, the passengers would panic—until they realized they were in an Amphicar. Instead of sinking, they were motoring across the lake. Later Johnson would tease his visitors for trying to save their own skins instead of the president.
All aboard! Lyndon B. Johnson takes some guests for a ride.
George H. W. Bush
Presidents shake a lot of hands, but only George H. W. Bush (president from 1989–1993) is known to have taken advantage of this excellent pranking opportunity. He sometimes hid a small metal disk known as a joy buzzer in his palm and surprised high-powered politicians with a vibrating handshake. He also spent his first day in the White House tricking everyone with a squirting calculator. Somehow, he found time to run the country, too.
George H. W. Bush
Thousands of people got to hear a president make a prank phone call in 2009. Virginia governor Tim Kaine was nearing the end of his term. He was in the middle of hosting his last radio call-in show, called “Ask the Governor,” when a call came in from a man saying he was “Barry from D.C.” The man said he wanted to ask about traffic in Virginia. Kaine was poised to take the question when the caller said something much more interesting: He revealed that he wasn’t just any old Barry from D.C.—he was President Barack Obama (first elected president in 2008) from the White House. For a second, Kaine was speechless. Then he broke into laughter and was visibly moved. He later learned that the radio station had arranged the call as a humorous—and memorable—sendoff. It’s not every day that you get fooled by the nation’s Prankster-in-Chief.
Barack Obama
