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Page 3 • Monday, September 20, 1999
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Prankster, Prankster
On-campus students reveal pros and cons of playing practical jokes
K
BY AMANDA PALM
The Battalion
esident hall pranks can range from things as ex
treme as tossing microwaves out of fourth-floor
windows to harmless ones such as stealing a per
son’s towel and clothes while they are in the shower.
Whatever the prank may be, they are usually done in
good fun and involve some sort of retaliation.
Tim Duvall, a junior speech communication major
who lived in Hart Hall his freshman year, said pranks were
a usual occurrence with the guys in his residence hall and
that he was more than willing to participate.
Duvall said sneaking in through suitemates’ rooms
or just going into rooms left unlocked were easy ways
to gain access.
Duvall said the worst prank he pulled was on the yel-
lowpot in his residence hall.
“1 snuck into his room and put catfish bait under his
sheets,” he said. “He couldn’t find it for the longest time
and the room stank for the rest of the semester. ”
But no good prank goes unpunished, and the yellow-
pot quickly sought revenge.
“I was walking out of the dorm for class one day,” Du
vall said, “and I got a shaving-cream balloon dropped on
my head. I had to go back to my room to shower and
change and ended up being late for class.”
Duvall recalls another instance of having a prank
pulled on him.
“Another time, I left a pair of shoes sitting outside my
door to dry out,” he said. “Somebody stole one of them.
They took just one, and I have never seen the shoe since. ”
Food has been a popular hem to use when pulling
pranks. Duvall said he saw some guys in the dorm fill Zi-
p/oc bags with rotten chili and then stick the opening of
the bag under the crack of the door. He said someone
would stomp on it, and chili would spray all over the
room, making a huge mess.
Mack Paradowsld, a senior environmental design ma
jor who lived in Moses Hall his first three years on cam
pus , said the pranks he and his buddies pulled in Moses
Hall had a tendency to be crazier and messier than those
in any other hall.
Paradowski said there was not usually a specific rea
son for pulling a prank.
“Sometimes we just did it out of boredom,” he said.
“Or sometimes we would do it to show a freshman
who thought he was pretty cool that he wasn’t as cool
as he thought.”
Paradowski said a common prank in his residence hall
was to prop a trash can full of dirty water against the door.
“We’d lean the cans against the doors of our next vic
tim so that when he opened the door to leave, water flood
ed into the room,” he said.
Ben Braly, a senior industrial distribution major
who also lived in Moses Hall, said he recalls a legacy
known as the “Fourth Floor Empire.”
Braly said the name was around long before he
moved into the dorm. He said he it applies to the up
perclassmen who live on the fourth floor because they
are known for their crazy actions and pranks.
Braly said even though it sounds strange, most pranks
were pulled on his friends.
“We usually didn’t mess with people who weren’t our
friends,” he said. “Sometimes we’d pick on someone, but
most of the time, it was people who knew one another.”
Paradowski recalls one of the worst pranks he pulled
as an all-out attack on a room.
“We had a buddy lure a guy out of his room with the
latest Playboy issue,” he said. “Then me and my friend
went into the guy’s room and covered it with the brown
paper towels from the bathrooms. It was September, and
we cranked up the AC as cold as it would go. We also put
clear deodorant all over his stuff, like his toothbrush.
Then we used a couple tubes of toothpaste to write all
over his walls.”
Braly said one of his favorite pranks occurred during
Bonfire. Braly said the upperclassmen would award a
freshman with a “Fish Pot.” Then the upperclassmen
would steal the pot from the freshman.
“We had it my sophomore year and were hiding in
another sophomore’s room,” he said. “We cut it to
pieces with tinsnips and gave it back to the fish one
piece at a time.”
Sometimes simply hanging out in the dorm would lead
to pranks or water fights.
“Something piddly happened and a water fight with
guns and balloons started,” Braly said. “Somehow a
fire alarm was set off, and this was at 3 a.m. during fi
nals, and the RA came to check things out and we told
him something else happened. I think we lied and said
a toilet flooded.”
Though he did not participate, Paradowski recalls
some destructive behavior that occurred after class
was out.
“It was before we had to be out of the dorms, and peo
ple were cleaning out their rooms,” he said. “Guys were
cleaning out fridges and throwing rotten jars of mayon
naise and stuff out of the windows. Then it progressed to
computer monitors that people didn’t want anymore and
then microwaves started going, too. Then the first toilet
went, and the next thing I knew there were about four toi
lets being tossed out of the fourth-floor windows. The Col
lege Station PD and UPD showed up, but I think the worst
that happened was everyone who was still in the dorms
got billed for the damage. ”
MARK MCPHERSON/The Battalion
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