Now I am not a love of pranks, really I hate them! The best and the worst prank is always answered with another prank, the retaliation prank. These retaliation pranks are even worse than the original pranks. When the dust finally settles, there is always someone whose feelings have gotten hurt.
So I cautiously submit to you a post by Phil Williams who worked at QM as a groundsman and camp assistant manager from 1988-1993. I do not endorse any of the pranks listed and warn everyone reading this not to try these at home or at camp.
Jell-O water balloons:
Smart & Final ketchup & mustard used to come in 1-gallon pump containers. I kept the empty containers, rinsed them out, and filled them with water. This allowed the groundsmen to pump water into water balloons in remote locations where there was no faucet or hose. We then used a water balloon launcher to launch water balloons long-distance at kitchen gals that were on break, couples that were making out, etc. One day I made up a batch of Jell-O, poured the hot mixture into a ketchup pump, pumped the mixture into water balloons, and let them set on a high shelf in the walk-in fridge for a few hours where nobody would notice them. Later on we had Jell-O- filled water balloons to use in the launcher. Our laundress was not too happy, as Jell-O stains don't come out of clothes very easily.
Toilet gelatin:
Late at night while on bear patrol, I made a couple gallons of clear Knox gelatin and hauled the mixture (still warm, not set) to the camper bathrooms. I turned off the water supply, flushed, poured the gelatin mix into each bowl to fill up to the proper water level, then turned the water supply back on. It was cold enough that the gelatin set up overnight. I had enough to do this in the girls bathroom, but not the boys. The next morning, things were a mess. At the time, we had to do bear patrol the night before our day off, so I was sleeping in and didn't have to do johnny run. Best of all was that since only the girls' bathrooms were full of gelatin, everyone assumed that the boy campers pulled the prank.
Squirting toilets:
We had a copy of "Uncle John's Bathroom Reader" in the guy's bathroom in Lewis Lodge. The book had a little nugget of trivia that said that most people flush the toilet while still sitting on it. We wanted to test the theory. So while on johnny run, we took the toilet tank lid off of each toilet tank and unclipped the bowl fill hose from the top of the tank fill pipe. We propped the hose over the edge of the toilet tank, just to the side of the lid. Then we replaced the toilet tank lid. If somebody flushed the toilet while still sitting on it, the bowl fill hose would squirt them on the back, just below the shoulder. This is a great trick to try at your next family gathering (best if it's at somebody else's house).
Blue shower water:
One summer, McDonald's was giving out water conservation kits, and I picked up several for use at QM. Each kit had a low flow/high pressure shower head, a screw-on faucet aerator, a water displacement bag for toilet tanks, a pamphlet about water conservation, and a couple blue dye tablets to detect leakage in toilets (put the tablets into the tank, if you see blue in the bowl, the valve is leaking and wasting water). We put the new shower heads into the showers in Lewis Lodge and Ruby's to save water. One day we put the dye tablets into the shower heads on the girl's floor of Lewis Lodge. A couple of kitchen gals that took showers during the afternoon break came in for dinner duty a little bit blue.
Phil Williams
Former Quaker Meadow Staff
Groundsman & Assistant Manager 1988-1993
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