Evil genius

I adore a good prank, and J alerted me to one that is currently being auctioned on eBay: Drive Someone Insane with Postcards. The seller is going to Poland and will send three postcards to the winning bidder's person of choice, postcards that contain information that a friend would know about the recipient...and the postcards will be illegibly signed. The recipient will be left to wonder who they know that is visiting Poland and sending them these postcards. I love it! It's a great prank AND they are making money on it!

J reminded me that it is similar to a prank I pulled several years ago. I worked with a young man named Ben who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He was being paid a lot of money (I guessed, or maybe just enough) to do apparently very little, and he and another privileged friend of his spent weekends traveling to interesting locales. He would return with stories of the women they met, the food they ate, the fun they had and the immense amounts of alcohol they consumed.

One of the places they visited was London. The voice mail system at that company did not record the telephone number of the message, which gave me an idea. I had a British friend who lived locally to call Ben's work number after hours and leave a very cryptic message. It was along the lines of "Hello, Ben, this is Kathy. It was great to meet you last weekend and I had such a good time. Can't wait to see you when I am in the States next month - I'll call you!" Kathy told me later that she nearly burst out laughing while leaving the message, especially since her husband was doubled over with laughter next to her!

Ben was baffled. I had let the other two women in the office know about the joke and they did a great job of playing along, asking who she could be, what he had done, yada yada yada. It absolutely bugged him to no end since he had finally worked out in his mind that it was a joke, but had no idea as to who was behind it. And since I had laid low at this company and he did not know me well, he had no reason to suspect me. The three of us women nearly laughed ourselves sick at his confusion.

It wasn't until months later when I left the company that I 'fessed up. He acknowledged that he never suspected me and that it was, indeed, a very good prank.

[Cue the ominous music] BWAA-HA-HA!