#510. Apologizing after an April Fool’s Day Prank – The Terror Level Color Coded Apology System
Mar 30th by JonPranks aren’t by nature unique to Christianity. That I’m aware of, there’s no recorded history of C.S. Lewis pantsing J.R.R. Tolkien. Pranks by themselves don’t really fit the formula of this site, but apologizing after? Serving penance for a church-related prank that went horribly wrong or even horribly right? That’s us through and through.
But the truth is, you don’t need this post today. You should file it away for Thursday, the day after April Fool’s Day. If you’re going to pull some shenanigans or tom foolery or perhaps even get in a donnybrook, this Wednesday is your day. Live it up.
But after, when your youth minister or Senior Pastor or local reporter stumbles upon the prank you have perpetuated, when like Richard Marx* you realize “you should have known better” than to fit that many bees into so small a sleeping bag, you’ll be glad this post so clearly laid out the categories of prank apologies based on the terrol level color coded system the United States uses.
Category 1: Green – Low Risk Prank
Hey look at that, you stuck some forks in someone’s yard, but you didn’t break them off because that felt too mean and unChristlike. And you called a few people from church and hung up on them when they answered the phone. That’s adorable. This barely requires an apology.
Apology Required: Facebook Status Change
Change your facebook status to something like, “Sorry about the prank. Hope nobody’s feelings got hurt.” Or “Kids will be kids.”
Category 2: Blue – General Risk Prank
That’s not going to grow back. I’m just saying, when you put that much on at once, and mix it with that other thing, wow, you’re leaving a permanent impression. I mean it’s not that big, but neighbors are going to see it for at least the next six months.
Apology Required: Email
You better send the victim an email. Nothing long, just a few lines about your deep regret for your actions and how your immaturity sometimes gets the better of you and at the end of the day you both love Jesus, so no hard feelings.
Category 3: Yellow – Significant Risk Prank
Prank Elders are kind of like elephants, they never forget and I’m pretty sure that guy isn’t going to. Where do you even get those? They’re just so fast and jumpy. I’m assuming you know a guy that knows a guy, but is there any chance that guy knows a guy that can get them out of the elder’s house? It’s not going to be easy because they seem so motivated and reproductive but maybe we could smoke them out?
Apology Required: Phone Call
Forget the Internet, you’ve entered into real apology time now. Pick up the phone and be ready to outline what you did as well as the three things you learned from this tragic mistake of a prank you pulled. (If you can’t think of three things, feel free to use one of my go to lines when I’ve bombed, “Turns out I’m dumb.” I keep learning that lesson and it’s always a nice way to round out a list.)
Category 4: Orange – High Risk Prank
Yeah, but you knew it was the Senior Pastor’s house right? I’ve got to assume you did because even the youth minister was in on this one. On a positive note, at least we know the fire department can find his house. And their response time, wow! Very impressive. I told you that was highly flammable, but to hear the fire chief use the phrase “river of lava,” wow. You’re going to need to get a paper route to pay this one back or raise money online or hold a car wash at Chick-fil-A.
Apology Required: Face to Face
This goes beyond a simple phone call. You might need to hand write a note, call ahead to set up the official apology and then bring over some sort of casserole. This apology is going to be as complicated as the prank was. The general rule for a face to face apology is that you have to spend three minutes apologizing for every one minute you spent pulling off the prank. So if it took you 30 minutes to do the prank, expect 90 minutes of “sorry” in your future.
Category 5: Red – Severe Risk Prank
The community will heal. I mean we’re a very resilient group of people. We’ve faced hardship before and this, that thing you did to all of us in one fell swoop, we’ll get through that. And the cats will come back someday. They are a proud animal and probably left out of embarrassment more than anything else. They’ll come back. I know they will.
Apology Required: Speech to the Church Congregation
May God have mercy on your soul if you ever have to apologize to the whole congregation from the pulpit. I’ve never had to do this, but if you find yourself in this position, whatever you do, don’t take questions from the crowd. Don’t open the meeting up to Q&A. You are going to come out on the losing end of this one. And I’m not telling you to fake cry, but you might want to fake cry.
Hopefully this list will make April 2nd easier for all of us that decide to pull a prank on April 1st.
What’s the best prank you ever took part in?
What’s the best prank someone pulled on you?
*That’s Richard Marx reference number two for the year. I promised to make three in 2009. I’m ahead of schedule!
Comments
sugar cookies. I made some just barely larger, a small enough difference to look accidental but a large enough difference that I could tell which were which. I always roll my sugar cookies in sugar…except, I like rolling the larger ones in salt. Then mix them up on the same plate. People naturally reach for the larger cookies, but you can keep eating the smaller ones with a perplexed look on your face…
katdish – I have just been crying with laughter about that telemarketing prank call!
lets see where should I begin couches on the roof of the church or duck in the youth pastors truck?
umm on second thought they still don’t know who did it so shhhhhhh.
Does color coding the terror level work on the color blind?
Grr… I feel stupid. And after all that I STILL don’t know who Richard Marx is! In my defence I’m only in grade 12! But youthfulness aside, would anyone care to enlighten me as to who this (in)famous character is, or do I have to google him myself?!?
On a completed unrelated note, my parents wedding anniversary is April 1st! (I’m starting to question my legitimacy…!)
@Lizzi et al
Richard Marx is a musician who was popular about 2 years before you were born. (Boy, that makes me feel old to say that.)
Here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JDTAqsMNEM
@ Bunnicula—That wasn’t very nice!
Richard Marx – oh be still, my beating heart! One of the first concerts I ever went to. He’s going to be in concert in a town nearby. I’ve decided to leave him just as he is in my teenaged memories. Yes – I’m giving up, I’m satisfied. Some of you will get that…..
Lizzi – I am only about one year younger than Richard Marx and I have never heard of him – so you have nothing to be ashamed of. I looked him up on Wikipedia – doesn’t sound like the sort of music I was into back in the day. Named and shamed…
I was a perfect child and above such Tom Foolery, but my husband wasn’t.
At the private Christian high school he went to, he and a few of his buddies removed some fenders from the Dean’s VW Bug, got it inside the school gym, and put it back together.
Is that a Level Orange?
I died laughing at “turn’s out I’m dumb”
Nick-
If you pull it off you are more than welcome to live in our back yard. We have a drainage ditch that runs the length of it. Consider my ditch your river. But get your own van. You picked a good week. My in laws are coming so we have above average food in stock. Plus, Southeast,my church, announced the 2nd satelite campus. They’ll be needing a youth pastor.
I love it when things work out.
But prank me and I’ll cut you.
Stacy
Quit name dropping. You don’t know us. Isn’t a book deal enough already?
Missions trip to Central American country.
Many stories about the militias in the area.
Youth group boys and pastor sleeping in dorm building.
Fireworks outside their window sounding like guns at 2 am.
Ahhhh…pranks.
I once worked in a large room filled with cubicles. Managers had larger cubicles around the walls, each of which had its own door. (All of us underlings had “open”-style cubicles.) While my boss was at a meeting, my co-workers and I replaced the panel that held his door with a plain panel, so there was no way in. When he returned, he was not amused. Like a NASCAR pit crew, we had it back to normal in under 3 minutes.
A friend of mine had the best one. She sprinkled powdered milk all over the victim’s lawn in the dead of night. In the morning when the sprinklers came on, the “milk” was watered in. Of course it soured, and reeked for weeks and weeks.
wv: epercoff – “If you epercoff, you really should politely cover your mouth.”
According to this, Jerry Falwell was a prankster. I wonder if he apologized for the blown up mailboxes and detonated stinkbombs.
So, WWJFD?
I’m just sayin.
Oh man…this brings back great memories from my first year of college…I was at a little Bible college in Ecuador, so it was inevitable that a prank war would involve everyone. It started with the night that all the girls went out to dinner…when we came back, the guys wanted us to help them surprise a guy whose birthday it was…we all went, like lambs to the slaughter, into a courtyard surrounded on all sides by buildings, several of which had overlooking balconies. When someone “gave the signal” we would all shout “happy birthday” to the guy who was sitting with his back to us at a window. Unfortunately, the “signal” was really a barrage of water balloons from the balconies and windows, while several other guys blocked the doors.
That was probably the best of the pranks, although the subsequent switching of all the boys’ clothes, attempted door-tying, shower-head stealing, and boxer-freezing were all memorable in their own ways.
I have a friend who had a cardboard cutout of Hulk Hogan. I borrowed that from my friend, taped my face on it, and put it outside of another friend’s door. She screamed and slammed her door. I don’t think I can ever top that prank.
Hehe.
When I was on my DTS in Fiji I sent this email home on April 1st. I thought it was pretty ridiculous, but my family called first thing in the morning, which was midnight for us, in tears. They were screaming and upset and it all had to get worked out. I also had about 20 emails from people, some laughing and some severely pissed off. I even signed the email, “Have a great april everyone,” but some people just didn’t quite catch it.
“Hey everyone!
I thought i’d let you all know something very important. i’m having a great time in fiji and stuff, learning lots and getting ready for outreach which starts a week from saturday. however, i met the most amazing girl here! in fact, even though we’re not technically allowed to date here on DTS…we’re engaged and the director has given us her blessing! my fiance’s name is Kaba (pronounced kamba) and she’s a fijian woman with 6 brothers and 4 sisters. her father loves me and can’t wait for me to take her to america with me. she’s 4 years older than me, but that’s okay. as is the case with fijian culture, “big is beautiful” and kaba is a shining star. she also has an afro, as do a lot of fijian women, and more facial hair than me (by the way, i haven’t shaved in 14 days, but when i do we usually shave together). she refuses to ever wear shoes or deodorant, so she has what i call an “island smell” to her..it takes a little getting used to but after that you’ll appreciate it and even love it like i do. she’s very nervous about meeting my friends and family back home, so please be kind and don’t ask to touch her afro, as that’s offensive to her culture. she’s used to cooking and cleaning so i’ll probably just get her to make my dorm room feel like home when i go to college in the fall. we’re getting married after outreach but before i return to new york, so when i arrive get ready to meet my black beauty!”
When my unnamed husband was in Bible college, some unnamed students typed up and copied an “apology” from another student for an unnamed but obviously serious offense and posted it around campus. That was not well received.
That unnamed husband left me to handle the arrival of the police and their K-9 unit (courtesy of a friendly neighbor) on a youth group toilet-papering party. He hid on the roof with the rest of his youth group.
In other news, I have had cold cups of water on me in the shower, a smoke bomb under my tea kettle ….
michele – not so good at pranks but a pretty good sport
Thank you, Hucklebuck! Finally someone who can answer a question properly… Bless your heart!
And don’t worry about feeling old, you probably are. Ha ha. Sorry!
Loved pranks tricks and practical jokes in Bible College.
1. Moving our RA’s MG into the student center overnight.
2. Removing tires from car and stacking them in their room by their bed…at 2 AM while they slept in said bed.
3. Koolaid in shower heads of other floors showers…
4. Pennylocking other floors dorm rooms shut…
5. Tying all the doors shut on the floor below us…it was the first floor so in the event of an emergency they could exit through their windows.
6. And the list could go on and on and on
And…Dr Falwell was a great prankster. The best in my opinion? Throwing lit firecrackers into the trashcan of his chartered airplane…right as it was lifting off. Lets just say his polits werent too happy!
Stacy,
Fortunately I have a van. With 4 kids they are pretty much a requirement.
Unfortunately I have little fear of being cut. Don’t believe me? Read my post from last Friday about my poor hands.
People avoid me like the plague this time of year. Might have something to do with the fact that I have quite the prank track record.
- Convinced my entire extended family that we were picked for the Family Feud, but i could only bring 4 of them. This started an actual family feud.
- My friend has a phobia of feet, so I googled tons of pictures of gnarly feet with diseases and long toe curly toe nails, made hundreds of photo copies. Then I stole the keys to his car, covered the outside in these photos like it was a mural and taped the photos to every inch of surface inside the car, including in his books, bags, under the seat, glove compartment, visor, etc. I then drove his car down the street to the party he was at as he ran around, frantically looking for his “stolen” car.
- One year April 1st was my last day at work, so I decorated my boss’ office with decor from every holiday you can imagine- witches, santa pinatas and streamers hung from the ceiling. Superbowl flags covered everything, along with VDay hearts, Mothers Day flowery signs and Eater eggs. the Floor was re-carpeted with bubble wrap and his chair was wrapped to his desk with Hanukkah wrapping paper. I did tours for my coworkers every hour on the hour and took pics of them in the office… you know, to boost team morale. My boss was flattered!
to be continued…
moving our campus minister intern’s office to the porch of the campus ministry house….so he could have a drive thru BSU….
continued…
- I posted an ad on Craigslist for an Estate sale at my friends' house. "Sale inside the house. Everything must go. Early bird gets the worm." I listed their cars & trucks, too. Shoppers started showing up at 5 am… on a Sunday
- I talked to my 3 elders' wives to get funny/ embarrassing photos of them. I ended up with male modeling pictures from the 80's (with a fur coat & Michael Jackson gloves!!!) and way too many mullets to count. I created a slide show that played as people walked into church. The congregation had waaay too much fun with that one.
- I put an ad on Craiglist under "tickets" and said that I won free tix to the Ricky Martin concert, but already had a cruise planned the same time. So, as my good deed for the year, I would give the tix to "Ricky's biggest fan" as long as they wrote me an essay on why they were his biggest fan. I put my friend's email address as the reply to address. He got over a hundred replies and some of them were sooo funny! Ricky fans are CRAZY!
- I've also used Craigslist to place ads for "free purebred lab puppy to good home" and "Won convertible on Price is Right. Must sell for quick cash. $1,000 or best offer." I always put a friend's email address for that.
- Last year I sent out an engagement party invite for my best friend who had JUST started dating someone. All of her other friends were shocked and annoyed that they didn't get hear the news from her… so was her new boyfriend. (Yes, they are still together.)
I would go on, but I can't give away ALL my secrets
A prank on our youth minister at my church in Fort Worth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9oFKKL8ugM
Nick,
You and the family are welcome any time. It’s Derby season. Bourbon, $400 hats, and horse crap required. Bring your own…bourbon and hat. I’ve always got crap to dish out.
i was once at a camp where teh speaker bragged about being a prankster. He spoke about that passage “i count everying Loss compared to knowing Christ Jesus..” he proceeded to tell us that LOSS in the old language had the connotation of todays word “Sh!t” …
BOOYAH
as a result … we filled his bed with horse “loss” … he found it incredibly amusing and couldnt figure out who did it till the end of camp…
if you brag about it… youask for it if you ask me
Well, it don’t mean nothin’, the words that they say.
These games that people play
No, it don’t mean nothing, no victim, no crime.
Till you sign it on the dotted line
Haha – forking. I almost got arrested forking my youth minister’s lawn in high school. Some fellow youth-groupies and I went to his house in the middle of the night and erected a giant cross-shaped fork pattern in his yard – and the neighbors called the cops. Oops.
I once put a SI swimsuit edition screen saver on another pastor’s computer. What I didn’t know is that that pastor was meeting in his office later that day with a Jewish Rabbi. (sounds like a joke I know.)
Not Good.
I had to do a face to face with the pastor and make a very awkward phone call to the Rabbi.
This is a great post, category # is by far the one I like the most. April fool’s day is one of my favorite, I always try to come up with something new each year. Here are some of my favorite hoaxes that I draw inspiration from, you can vote on your favorite: http://www.toptentopten.com/topten/april+fools_+hoaxes+ever
I've got a GREAT prank to share:
In college, two of my pals got into a prank war. It wasn't so bad… at first. But it just kept escalating. The final pranks were as follows:
The guy took pictures of the girl's car and made "for sale" signs with a ridiculously low price and the girl's phone number. Hung them up all over campus, so she got lots of phone calls until she caught on and removed the signs.
Not to be outdone, the girl got into the guy's dorm room and took EVERY BIT OF CLOTHING. She replaced it with some of her own, right down to girly underwear. She also placed nail polish, make-up, & various hair items on his dresser. I believe she went so far as to put feminine hygiene products in his bathroom. The prank would have been PERFECT, except the guy caught her going across campus w/ the huge laundry basket of all his stuff!!!
What fun we had in our Christian college…
(DUDE – my wv is "howle"!! as in "Pranks from the ole days maketh me howle with laughtereth")
Check out this cartoon about April Fools Day!
http://pastexpiry.blogspot.com/2009/03/cartoon-april-fools.html
*CARTOON*
Feel free to post on your blog or “tweet”
At Bible School we covered every square inch of a friend’s dorm room with 2 inch wide, 1 inch deep paper cups FILLED with water while he was out on his first date with a girl, even as well as we could behind his door.
I wish I had a picture somewhere, it was beautiful.
It took a VERY long time to clean up and resulted in a very wet floor when he got back and flung open his door in jubilee!
.. i’m wondering if the descriptions for the different levels refer to pranks you have seen/heard of, or hopefully not, ones you have performed yourself. like categories 2 and 3, i’m trying to imagine what could possibly have happened..
a couple years ago I was 36 wks pregnant and pulled the “uhh, honey!”, hunched over a puddle of water…
it was SO great to watch him say,–frantically–”ok…ok…let’s stay calm…ok!…ok…well let’s get things ready to go…wow!…let’s breathe…no panicking…wow!…” etc etc. I couldn’t let him go on for more than a minute before breaking the news, and he didn’t believe me at first! let’s just say that 4 weeks later when my water actually did break he hesitated a bit before taking my word for it…
Yesterday a friend of mine got everyone in the wind ensemble we’re in to email the director with reasons why we had to drop the ensemble for the rest of the year. A lot of the reasons were sudden life changes: I wanted to move to Tibet and become an oracle, one girl thought band was getting in the way of her paleontological aspirations (including the best tag line ever: “See you later, fossilized proto-alligator!”)… some were eloping to far-off countries or joining foreign armies. There were a handful of people who had curious injuries or had been instructed by their psychiatrists that band was no longer a healthy place for them. A couple of the male trombone players quit for vain reasons: one didn’t have enough time to gaze lovingly at himself in the mirror (“My full beauty is not revealed in a trombone bell!”) and the other’s hearing was suffering from being so near the bass drum, but neither Gucci nor Vera Bradly make earplugs and he just can’t be seen in anything less than brand name. There are around 80 of us in the ensemble… The director said it took him two hours to get through all our emails!
wv: Caring – seriously? That’s a real word. I think this wv is Blogger’s way of condemning all of us for our pranks….
I emailed my best friend’s friends to tell them to convince my BFF it was her birthday. For the entire day, people were writing on her Facebook wall and wishing her happy birthday and someone got her a card. I even convinced her mom to wish her a happy birthday. It was awesome.
It was senior year. My high school has 4000 in it, way too big for a prank, and since i'm the preachers daughter it only seemed fit that my two best friends and i played some sort of prank.
We toyed with alot of ideas, but it came down to putting bubbles in baptismal (the head of janitorial staff was not pleased!hahahaha) and then i know a way of getting up in the lighting part of the ceiling above the sanctuary, we were going to climb the rafters and during the 1st service we were going to drop a bird and let it fly crazy around and watch the deacons and ushers chase it…. but we thought all it takes is to scare for the bird to land on some grannys head, and we'd be in BIG trouble.
so we got a little blue bird (we named it blue baptist) and put it under all the decorative plants on the platform near the pulpit for it to churp during the service. Lets just say my dad didnt think twice when guessing that it was us.
We gave the bird to my granny after it was all done. She renamed it Percy. hahaha
HAHAHA! This is the greatest article I've read in quite some time. I go to Oral Roberts University, and it seems that guys here prey on this concept more than anywhere else.
They'll sit under the wings of the girl's dorms and "serenade" the women on Saturday mornings. I've often contemplated stashing water balloons by my window and hitting them as soon as they start. I once even saw a guy walking and singing on the main walkway from the parking lot to the dorms. I shook my head and wondered if he was actually planning on getting a girl that way.
I love this article!
aaaand that previous comment was definitely posted on the wrong article.. how? not sure
I once sent an email from our children's pastor's email detailing her troubles with the church and announcing her thoughts of resignation with a note in white font that read (this is Adam and this is a joke). We had started a month of pranks and it all began very simply with tp in an office/missing supplies/upside down decorations. Then I sent the email.
It really didn't go over too well. They emailed me that night and told me that I needed to meet with our sr pastor and executive pastor at 7:00 on Saturday morning only to show up at 8:30 for the men's breakfast and laugh really hard at my frustration and anxiety. I didn't sleep at all that night before wondering how I was going to feed my family. That "month of pranks" was done after that and it's never been seen since. Good times.
When our new youth minister arrived. We welcomed him with open arms.
We took all the labels off his cans of food.
We stole his mailbox.
We moved his big couch to my garage for a week.
We put saran wrap on all the toilets and put a rubber-band around the hose thing at the kitchen sink.
Then he figured out we had a spare key and changed the locks.
Good times.
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