Have you ever scared the crap out of someone?

Nathan Natas

The recent thread about "supernatural" experiences helped me to remember the times I enjoyed playing frightening pranks on people.

Example #1: Years ago the employees at a place I worked for had a 40th birthday party for one of the women we worked with. It was a typical "somber and dark" humorous party with black balloons, black candles on the birthday cake... all meant to suggest that at 40 ife as you know it is just about over. It's funny, but 25 years after my 40th birthday I'm yearning for those days when things were better.

...but I digress. The party was good-natures fun and everyone had a nice time. After the party during the clean-up, somehoe some inflated black balloons found their way into a large storage closet - a large walk-in windowless closet with racks for storage of printed literature, equipment that might find use in a meeting (projectors, TVs, VCRs, etc.). Time passed, and the black balloon deflated a bit and began to collect a nice film of dust on its surface which was held in place by static electricity. This completely changed the way the ballon looked... it didn't resemble a balloon anymore, it looked like a cannon-ball, which is what I first thought it was when I saw it patiently sitting there.

I picked the "cannon-ball" up with both hands and held it in front of myself with my shoulders rounded as they might be had this really been a 50-pound (24 kilo) cannon ball. I shuffled up to the desk where one of the guys I worked with was sitting and said, "Why do we have a cannon-ball in the storage closet?" as I tossed the "cannon-ball" toward him in an arc that would have had it land in his lap had it really been a 50-pound ball of iron.

BOY did he jump to protect the family jewels!

I've got a couple other examples I can share, but they'll each take a bit of time to type up, so I'll add them later if there is any interest.

Phizzy

I've never been one for Practical Jokes, I can see the funny side of them, I just never am smart enough to think of them !

I did scare the crap out of an Elder once though, simply by making a stand. Not a practical joke, but a Practical Manouver !

He had slandered me, and mine, I said if he did not correct this I would take him to Court.

He, with a smarmy look of confidence on his face said, "We do not take our brothers to Court".

I replied with a simple " I do".

He corrected the situation. Good job, I would have carried out my promise, and seen him in Court.

Decided

I don't know. He never took his pants down to let me see if crap was there. LOL

Ken P.

blondie

I never do practical jokes but I have put the fear in some elders. Someday I'll tell those events.

cofty

OK I have been wanting to get this off my chest for ages.

I had a flat near Edinburgh when I was a young single pioneer. After a while I invited a friend called Peter to move in as his house was overcrowded. I frequently had visitors stay from all over, often at short notice. It was pretty much open house.

One weekend I had been away visiting friends and when I got home on the Sunday I had a guest I had known nothing about. He was about 19 or 20 and from the Highlands somewhere. He had turned up unexpectedly at the house of a sister he fancied but her dad was not a JW and he was sent packing. Her mum rang my flat-mate and asked if he could stay with us for the night. Anyway long-story-short I didn't like him. He was a compulsive liar. He claimed he had been mugged and had no money. He was a total freeloader.

I let him sleep on the couch but before bed the conversation turned to demons etc. He was petrified by the whole subject so we hatched a plan...

My bedrooom was next to the living room and I had set up my stereo - 1980s glass fronted hi-fi cabinet - with extra speakers in my room and the electric plug beside my bed. That way I could listen to music in bed and switch it off before I fell asleep - or not! So Peter and I said good night to him and told him not to worry as we hadn't had any demonic incidents for a while...haha

We waited patiently for at least half an hour until he was likely to be dropping off to sleep and then I flicked the switch beside my bed for just a couple of seconds. This caused all the stereo units to light up and the tuner started playing the radio. There was absolute silence from the living room. A few minutes later I did it again and the wailing from the living room began. Peter and I burst in to ask him what was wrong. He was terrified and not making much sense. We pretended he had been imagining it and told him not to worry. I pointed to the plug beside the stereo - which was actually for the fire and a lamp - and reassured him it was all switched off.

When his wailing reduced to a wimper we wished him a good sleep and turned the lights off as we left the room. Only Peter didn't leave the room, he dropped down behind an armchair equipped with a can of body spray and an electric razor.

As arranged we waited for at least 15 minutes for our guest to settle down. Then Peter sprayed a tiny amount of body spray. A few minutes later he buzzed the razor for a second. He kept this up for a few minutes before I joined in again with the stereo.

He was frantic!

I burst into the room again giving Peter a moment to get out of his hiding place before puting the light on. Our guest's face was fear personified.

We went to bed after that but we never did tell him the truth about his experience. To this day he is probably telling stories about his night in a haunted house.

The next day I bought him a bus ticket home and made him promise to refund me the money. I never saw him or my cash again but it was worth every penny.

Nathan Natas

GOOD WORK, Cofty! That's a great story!

Some folks might feel that practical jokes are mean or hurtful. Obviously a "joke" that ends in the death or injury of the victim goes beyond the kind of jokes that I'm talking about.

My thesis is this: life is pretty harsh and always comes to a bad ending. Therefore he who has been "hardened" a bit has an evolutionary advantage; he is better able to adapt to the challenges and changes that time delivers. Those that soil their shorts and fall over in shock will be less likely to make a lasting contribution to the gene pool.

OUR ancestors were survivors, else we would not be here. Hiding under the covers when a wolf or a "demon" comes into your cave at night is not an effective survival strategy.

I do this in service to humanity; no need to thank me.

cofty

I am a little bit concerned that I feel no guilt about that one!

Stand for Pure Worship

I used to frighten one of my directors by quietly standing at her doorway waiting for her to notice me. Like clockwork, when she'd look up from her desk or away from her monitor, and see me standing there, she'd jump. Then she'd laugh or be slightly annoyed. We get along quite well, I kinda dig her too, and as a result I got too comfortable, callous even, and pulled this stunt just one too many times. I did it on a Saturday when she didn't expect anyone to linger back to where her office was. She got startled, started crying, cursed a little bit, and stormed out of there. I felt so bad about that. I mean on one hand, she could have had me fired, or at the least HR could have penalized me in some kind of way. That wasnt really my concern though as I just felt bad for making her cry. All Saturday and Sunday that was on my mind. Monday I apologized in person, and in my own twisted sense of fate, I sent an emailed apology in case she wanted to burn me with evidence which I would have had coming to me. She accepted it, and explained she was stressed at that particular moment. We've since moved on from that incident and get along great as if it never happened. I'll never do anything like that again though.

Simon

For some reason (well ... let's be honest, the reason was childish stupidity) I decided I'd scare Angharad when we were watching some old zombie movie. She'd gone to the washroom so I quietly crept upstairs and waited in the dark outside the bathroom door with a torch in my jumper to give that classic scary-lighting-look and my arms outstretched towards the door.

As she came out looking behind her to turn the light off and turned her head round I let out a moan just as she was about 2 feet away from me. "Aaaaaaarrrrgghh!!!!!" she cried (but in a much more piercing tone) and collapsed backwards onto the floor.

"Oh shit, I killed my wife!" was my first thought followed quickly by "oh dear, if she isn't dead then I soon will be".

She was pretty mad. A lot.

OUTLAW

LOL!!@Simon!!..

.......................... ...OUTLAW

Have you ever scared the crap out of someone?

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