If you're attending college, you know that dorm pranks are a part of campus life. Learn the rules of pranking to make sure everyone has a good time.
Who Doesn't Love Dorm Pranks?
Have you replaced the coffee station sugar packets with salt? Been caught doing something embarrassing on camera? Found that someone's replaced your cereal with sawdust? Just like everything else in life, there are "dos" and "don'ts" when it comes to college pranking. Here are some guidelines to follow when you want to play a joke on one of your dorm mates.
Keep it Safe
Everyone loves a little prankster fun - that is, until someone gets hurt. Dorm pranks are meant to be fun for everyone involved, which means you shouldn't take part in any mischief that might hurt people or cause damage to someone's property. Remember that just because you're having fun, it doesn't mean that everyone else is, too. Consider the feelings of others before planning any pranks or jokes.
Safe and Fun Pranks
Here are a series of funny, but safe, pranks that you'll remember for years to come.
The Rearranged Room
It's always disorienting to walk into an unfamiliar place, and doubly so when that unfamiliar place is your home! Try sneaking into another student's dorm room and moving the furniture around. Swap out her bed and desk, turn the coffee table upside down, and hide her reading lamp or favorite chair. Position yourself safely down the hallway so that you can catch the confusion when the victim returns to her room and takes a few seconds to realize what happened. It's always worth a laugh!
Note: This is not an appropriate prank for someone with a vision impairment or other disability.
The Mystery Beep
Ever been driven crazy by an annoying noise that you can't seem to find the source of? Try putting a nearly dead nine-volt battery in a smoke detector and hiding it in someone's room. Three good hiding places are behind the TV, at the bottom of the closet, or in the dirty laundry basket. The device will beep intermittently, just often enough to make him wonder what's going on but not frequently enough to easily find what's causing the noise. While this joke would not be terribly funny during, say, finals week, a random Tuesday afternoon might prove the perfect time for this innocent prank.
Late Night Toilet Alarm
This prank is a bit of a derivation of the Mystery Beep, but will still give you hours of laughs afterwards. No one likes being woken up in the middle of the night to a weird sound, right? Go to the store and buy a battery-powered alarm clock, one that doesn't need to be plugged in to work. Make sure to buy the loudest one you can. Set the alarm to go off at a random time late at night, then seal it completely in a zip-top bag. Make sure that it's completely sealed. Then visit a friend one night, excuse yourself to go to the restroom, and hide the alarm clock in his toilet tank. When it goes off he'll wake up and hunt all over the room, but never think to look in the toilet tank.
Some Not So Funny Pranks
Some jokes are not funny at all, and can wind up causing injury, or worse. Here are a few dorm pranks in the news that we recommend you most certainly do not try:
- Joking about distributing faulty condoms - It's not funny to send hundreds of girls running to the medical center for pregnancy tests.
- Setting fire to things, even in jest - It is most certainly not funny to start fires, which can then spread and kill your fellow students.
Things to Remember About Dorm Pranks
- It's supposed to be fun for everyone.
- Consider the feelings of the other person before you plan a prank.
- Don't do it if something might get broken or someone might get hurt.
- It's not worth it to get kicked out of school or go to jail over a silly prank, so think before you act!
