The Oracle Goes pranking
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Entertainment
THEORACLE
With April Fools’ Day quickly approaching, members of The Oracle embraced their inner trickster by testing out some of their favorite pranks on fellow staffers. Take a look (and stock up on saran wrap).
Ashley Ngu
If you’re playing a practical joke on someone and need an extra hand, I am not the one to call. I’m pretty sure that I was born without any pranking abilities whatsoever. So when I was tasked to pull a prank on The Oracle, I knew I had a daunting assignment ahead of me. Being the uneducated newbie prankster that I was, I decided to do some research. In actuality, this meant googling various phrases like “best pranks” and “how to pull off a prank.” After discovering some cringe-inducing pranks, I realized that I needed to set some guidelines
for myself. My prank would NOT include physical pain, humiliation or vandalism. Call me a wuss, but I didn’t want anyone to get hurt; I just wanted to be funny, and thus Operation Plastic Wrap was born. The plan was to gain access to the journalism room during lunch, plastic wrap the doorway, wait until lunch ended, and then observe. It actually took me three tries to pull off the prank, but what can I say, I’m a beginner. The first time, I forgot the plastic wrap at home. The second time, the journalism room was locked. But as the old saying goes, the third time’s the charm. I had hoped that when our advisor unlocked the door, she would walk straight
into the plastic wrap without looking. Unfortunately, with her astute powers of observation, she saw the plastic wrap, said “What the hell,” and then promptly blamed Boot. Chuckling to myself, I played the role of an innocent and unaware student. Fortunately, the rest of the class found it pretty hilarious, much to my delight. And thus, my first legitimate prank was successful and I will admit that I’ve gained a new appreciation for pranking. The secret plotting and the feeling of accomplishment at the end made pranking a worthwhile endeavor, although I must admit that Operation Plastic Wrap was pretty small-time. So for now, it’s back to the drawing board. —Ngu, a senior, is Editor-in-Chief
Kyle Zhu
Michael Wu
Clockwise from left: A student walks into Ashley’s plastic trap. A tinfoil flag was the a clever detail in Boot’s prank. The suffocating silver Toyota is the final product of Boot’s saran-wrapping. Monica attempts to remove some of the saran wrap.
Boot Bullwinkle
Tin foil: $8. Shrink-wrap: $10. The look on senior Monica Cai’s face when she saw her shrink-wrapped and tinfoiled car: priceless. I knew very well what I was getting into when I decided to prank Monica and it was all worth it in the end. One day when Monica didn’t show up to class I decided to take the risk and go vandalize her car, even though I had no clue where she was. The shrink-wrap worked perfectly as I efficiently ducked
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over and under the car, wrapping it in the plastic. It even started to draw spectators, students and faculty alike who laughed and even offered their own personal advice. But as I lifted her windshield wiper to start wrapping it with tinfoil, the car alarm began to blare while I was spread across its hood. I jumped off so quick, that I leaped onto the car in the parked space next to hers. Fellow staffer Michael had joined to take photos of the process and we both started cracking up as we “played it cool” beside my car until the beeps and horns ceased. We quickly went back to work as we realized we were running out of time (in addition it started to rain). We did our best with the foil, and finished the car off with my favorite feature: a tinfoil flag that
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flapped very boastingly in the wind. Just as we started off back to class, I heard an all-too-familiar shriek from across the parking lot. “Boot! What the [cool thing that I should really appreciate the beauty of] did you do to my car?” Michael snapped pictures of Monica’s reaction, but the joke was really on us. I wasn’t in the mood for getting slapped, so still laughing, we reluctantly cleaned up the mess. It was really fun to unleash my inner immaturity on Monica and disrupt her day as I’m so accustomed to doing (I may even have to prank her again). She was a great sport and even asked for a photos. It turned out to be a pretty memorable experience. —Bullwinkle, a junior, is an Entertainment Editor.
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April Fools’ Day is only for fools
Ellen Lee
It’s 11:59 on March 31. Whether you’re a master of pranks, a passive bystander or an unlucky victim, you know that you’re a minute away from National Have-A-FreePass-To-Be-Obnoxious Day, more commonly known as April Fools’ Day. In my long, bountiful life of sixteen years and four months, I have witnessed a painful line of unsuccessful pranks, with a few, occasional knee-slappers here and there; but the worst prank I’ve ever come across, took place in the fifth grade. It was an awful prank, one that really made me question human nature. On this deplorable day, my best friend’s parents decided that it would be hilarious to fake a divorce. Obviously, they didn’t get a positive reaction, as the act of a family breaking up isn’t the most humorous occurrence. On April 1, my friend came late to school with teary, bloodshot eyes, and told me in a shaky voice that her parents told her they were getting a divorce earlier that morning before school. After half an hour of being heartbroken and shocked, her parents told her that it was all a joke. Naturally, she suspected that they were kidding around, but the joke still traumatized the poor ten-year-old. I might be completely out of date, but jokes are usually meant to be funny, not traumatizing or awkward. Not surprisingly, there was no chuckling in their household that morning. Although this incident may be more extreme and dramatic than most, there is a blatantly clear reason why April Fools’ pranks always fail. Everyone expects the unexpected on April Fools’, because it is the one day of the year that you have a good excuse to try something stupid. An underlying rule that no one seems to understand is that pranks and jokes should always result in laughter and perhaps a hint of resentment. The combination of poor humor and the victim’s expectancy work handin-hand to concoct a failed day, almost so disastrous that the failure itself is funny. Maybe the humor in April Fools’ comes from the extraneous efforts and drastic measures people take to trick each other as well as the various blunders that follow, and not the pranks themselves. —Lee, a junior, is an Assistant Business Manager.
4. Alvina Yau
1. Whoopie cushions are flatulantly hilarious prank for the ages. 2. Water cups make it quite difficult to navigate a room, because with each step you’ll have to move six cups and risk a spill. 3. Switch shampoo with foot cream to flip things around a little. 4. Putting a fish in a water cooler is gross, but funny since fish poo sinks right into the spout.