Mua ha ha ha ha.

Working security in a hospital(Kingston General Hospital to be specific). Newbie training one night. Fellow guard gets on a gurney(bootless), we put a sheet over him and the proper tags in the proper places(pouch and toe), and wheel him into the morgue. 5 minutes later, he's freezing, and the trainee is on his way with the trainer to show her proper morgue procedures. Trainer's showing her the tags to take and the tags to leave, when the "corpse" sits up. She screamed, he was white as a ghost(no, neither of them had been informed of the prank in progress to ensure its effectiveness) and both were shakey for the next half hour or so. We laughed so hard...

Just after I got married, my wife and I and another couple went camping for the weekend. We had seperate tents but shared a picnic table. My wife and I were sitting on one side and buddy's wife was sitting opposite me. Buddy thought it would be funny if he snuck up behind his wife, grab her sweater and yank it up to her neck, thinking she had something on underneath. Wrongo! Two big boobs flopped out almost in my face and the look of horror and shock was just about enough for me, just about. Without any fanfare I stood up, took my wallet out and peeled a five dollar bill out. I slapped in down on the table and said, "I didn't think you would do it, here's your fiver!"

The single best joke I ever played and I was the only one who thought it was funny. Go figure!

In high school I had a math teacher who was not only brilliant but a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino. Before my friends and I graduated, we wanted to pay him a special surprise prank.

I contributed to the prank a small, plush tiger. Another friend contributed an old Barbie car. We ripped the head off the stuffed tiger and did our best to stuff it into the backseat of the Barbie car. Then we went to the artroom and used various shades of red paint to make the stuffing protruding from the neck look bloody and entrail-like. We also dipped some extra stuffing in red paint and placed it around the car for good measure. Made the tiger guts look more splattery.

During the senior's last day, in the middle of one of his freshmen math classes, we opened his door, pushed the Barbie car with the decapitated tiger into his room and then quickly slapped a sign to the inside of his door that read "DEAD TIGGER STORAGE".

It's not as funny having to explain it, but it was a brilliant Pulp Fiction reference. He liked it so much that he took a photograph of it. None of the freshmen kids in his class got it. Too bad.

I started this thread for a couple of reasons.

1. To show theists that we are not all venom and fangs, and that we too have a sense of humor.

2. But, in a serious context, the reason we fall for these jokes is quite simple, because our brains evolved to seek out patterns and we fill in the gaps. When reality doesn't meet the gap , "VIOLA, PRACTICAL JOKE".

And for the same reason my friend thought I was going beat the shit out of a complete stranger, is simple, he was ignorant(not supid, or dumb), but did not have the information that I had at the time I decided to pull the joke on him.

People, even today, outside of pranks, all kidding aside, lean towords filling in the gaps over introspection. Once we get it into our heads that a pattern works, our egos wont let go of it. The only tool to overcome personal bias that works is scientific method.

In the army, we lived in dormitory style rooms one soldier per room and on the second floor there was a narrow ledge outside that went around the entire building.  It wasn't meant for  walking on but you could hug the wall and sidestep along it.  Those days learning remote controls were new so not many people knew about them yet.  I paid a visit to one of the guys in his room one day and when he stepped out for a bathroom break, I programmed my remote to control his tv's power on/off.  Later on that night when he was watching tv laying in bed, I went on the ledge and made my way to his window and with my remote turned off his tv.  He yelled out WTF!  For some reason, when you turn of his tv with remote, he had to get up and manually turn it on again.  So he goes back to laying down and I turn it off again.  OMG, after a few times he was furious and started slapping his tv and cursing it to no end.  I was trying so hard not to laugh my bellie was convulsing and I nearly fell off the ledge.  That was my cue to stop.  Anyway, he never knew what happened that day.

At my old job part of my work was packaging orders, with two others who were good friends. So one day, just before Christmas, we decided to prank our Finance Manager. (It's ok, we knew him well)

So we ''borrowed'' his suede jacket out his office while he wasn't there, and took it to the packing area, where we proceeded to wrap it in bubblewrap, put it in a large box, and fill that with shredded paper. We then wrapped the whole thing in gift wrap.

We went straight to his office before he could notice the missing jacket and presented it to him on behalf of the packing team( all three of us) Amazingly, he completely fell for it( Didn't really expect him to since he knew we were clowns) he tore into it like a 6 year old on christmas, tearing away at all the wrappings. When he finally got it out the many layers of bubble wrap,he looked at it and excitedly exclaimed, " A jacket!"

Then as he twigged, his face kinda fell and he looked at the chair where his jacket had been. This time he just said, "  My jacket"..maybe you had to be there but his expression was priceless..I was almost on the floor laughing

I didn't do this but a friend of mine told me about it.

He was driving a car with some passengers and would turn his head around and look behind him periodically. After he had done this 3 or 4 times the passengers were getting nervous and curious. The curiosity prevailed and they looked behind them. As soon as they did he screamed and slammed on the breaks. Everyone in the car started flipping out thinking they were going to hit something due to his lack of concentration on the road.