Pranks a lot!

As promised months ago, since today is April Fool's Day, I'd recount a prank I pulled on a fellow dorm mate in college.

It was the second semester of my freshman year. Two new guys had just moved into the empty room down the hall from where I roomed. Apparently, they were already good friends from high school and they requested that they room together. As most of us know now, there are two things that can ruin a good friendship- the first is living together and not then getting along. The second is when one gets a new girlfriend. At this period in their lives, Jason and Craig had to suddenly contend with both.

Jason was dating a girl named Reenie and his finally living away from his parent's house was a dream come true in the fact that he could have sex with her without fear of his parents walking in on them. Imagine his chagrin when Reenie got extremely mad and embarrassed when Craig walked in on them while she was half naked. After she stormed out of his room, Jason and Craig went into a loud screaming match in the hallway.

Jason basically argued that Craig should have to knock on the door before unlocking and entering the room. Craig rebuffed that he shouldn't have to knock on his own door and he should be able to come and go as he pleases. Their loud spat started to draw a crowd, including my attention as well. As I listened to them debate and observed Jason's face turn red I felt a twinge in the of my brain. It was telling me to do something awful as I was presented with the best set up.

Having briefly met Jason a week ago (we had walked to the local comic book shop together), I approached them and made a suggestion.

"Listen, you're both going all about this all wrong..." I sagely presented my advice, "You're both right, of course, Jason deserves privacy and Craig shouldn't have to knock on his own door every time he wants to get in. What you guys need is some sort of signal. I don't know....put something on the door knob...like...a rubber band!!"

I walked into their room and grabbed a rubber band from Craig's desk and placed it around the door knob.

"Look! See, now once Craig goes to unlock the door, he'll see the rubber band and then know to either knock if he really has to come in or go away and come back in half hour. All you have to do, Jason, is once you and Reenie go into the room to fool around is put the rubber band on the knob."

Both of them started to calm down and then immediately agreed it was a good compromise. Now, while my deed was seemingly altruistic I was actually setting Jason up. As I mentioned before, my dad was a rubber band salesman and I had in my possession a 4 foot rubber band. It was 4 feet long and about 2 inches wide and 1/4 inch thick. I believe my father sold them to be used to help seal barrel slats together during their creation but I'm not certain. I can tell you we sell something similar in my business for a completely different use. Their presence in my warehouse still reminds me of my devious prank to this day.

The next day I waited for Jason to take Reenie into his room. I left my door open so I could spot them walking past. Sure enough, at the same time as the day before, they walked hand in hand down the hall and then into Jason's room. Several minutes later I saw Jason (with his shirt off) peek his head out of the room and place the rubber band on the knob. I scurried down the hallway with my enormous rubber and pulled the old switcheroo.

Soon, (because of my telling everyone) a crowd of guys stood outside snickering and waiting to see what the reaction would be. Luckily, Craig was among the witnesses as he was visiting someone in another room. About 10 minutes later, Reenie emerged from the room (to go to the bathroom?) and saw the rubber band hitting the floor and going down the hall about 2 feet. She gave a perplexed look as guys from every room started to erupt with laughter. Realizing that she was now the center of attention for just having had sex, poor Reenie turned bright red, screamed at Jason that she was never coming back to his room and ran down the hall back towards the elevator. Jason came running out after her and was yelling what was the problem and then his peripheral vision caught the large rubber band.

His ire went immediately towards Craig, thinking that he had switched the bands out. Craig tried to send me up the river right away but I had already hid in my room with my door shut. I did have to fess up, however, in order to get my rubber band back. Jason did eventually become a friend of mine, as did Craig.

I try little pranks here and there, but none with such success as that rubber band provided for me. It was a flash of genius that hopefully someday will return.

Speaking of Magic Hats...

Talking about Magic Hat beer reminds me of the days back in college when me and my housemates would attempt to get liquor and beer for our parties. It's not the beer that's reminding me of this story either, it's the name itself, "Magic Hat". It's a moniker that me and a few of my friends came up with for an old ivy wool cap that seemed to fool people into thinking that you were 21 or older.

Most of us at that time were only 19 or 20 years old, so obtaining any amount of beer or liquor required an older friend which wasn't always available at the time. We had heard through the grapevine that there was a liquor store owned by a Korean man in Greenbelt, MD that would sell liquor to college students without asking for ID. So, we all piled into the car and headed to the liquor store. Once there, we decided that only one of us should go in and attempt to get some cases of beer. (and we usually bought some nasty swill like Milwaukee's Best aka "The Beast" because it was like $11.25 a case or some absurdly low price.) We all agreed that Gene looked the oldest of us, but in hindsight, I think Gene had a rather boyish face. We dressed Gene as old as we thought we could make him look. After dressing him in an argyle sweater and slacks, we topped him off with an old woolen ivy cap (see above). Gene came out of the liquor store 10 minutes later with the booty and we all rejoiced. Later that night, we celebrated this wonderful miracle by getting shit-faced drunk. It was a good thing we now had some swill and cheap vodka.

Later that week, I took my roommate, Jeff, with me to the same liquor store. Feeling confident that I needed no ID to get beer, I marched into the store with no costume to make myself look older. At this point I just figured that the owner had no morals when it came to under-aged drinking and just wanted to make some money, so I thought I'd have no problem.

Think again, Brian.

The old Korean man immediately asked for some ID after I put a few cases of the "good stuff" (MGD) on the counter. I told him that I had left it in the car and would be right back. I ran out like the scared wuss that I am. When I got back to the car, Jeff decided he would take a chance and give it a try himself. The hat that Gene had worn was still in the back seat, so I told him to put it on in the hopes it would make him look older.

Even though Jeff was a year younger than me and looked it- Jeff came out with the case of MGD, it's gold label shimmered in the setting sun.

It was truly a thing of beauty.

It had also made us realize that we were in possession of a magic hat. Much like the glasses that Superman wore to become Clark Kent, the magic hat blinded people's ability to judge someone's true age. We had to use the hat wisely and not succumb to it's lure of power and not abuse its wondrous abilities. Lest you think that it was me that the Korean liquor store owner would not serve, I went into the store a week later with the hat on and had no problems.

The hat itself was actually my friend's, Gary, hat. He liked to wear strange and vintage style things like that and I think he may have worn the hat himself 3 times tops. It was just his style to do something like that. He had no problems letting us use the hat and after he left Maryland to go to Rutger's University, he left behind the hat, either because he forgot to take it or just didn't care for it too much. I grew to love the style of hat over the years, perhaps because I missed my friend. This day I still wear an ivy hat that's made of leather when I play poker. It's one of my favorite things to wear.

Eventually we all aged a few years and didn't need the magic hat. By that point we had moved out of the dorms and really didn't have any younger friends to pass the hat on to. The hat traveled with me to Pennsylvania when I dropped out of school. I even donned it a few times when the mood struck me. I eventually lost the hat in one of my moves and my wife eventually bought me a nice leather version of the same style hat.

Sometimes, I wonder if the magic hat's real magic was not that it fooled people into thinking you look older but rather that it gave you the confidence you needed to walk up and not look like you're trying to get away with something. Perhaps, it was a little of both.