Twenty-five years ago today:
...The Herald of Arkansas State University ran "
Glass-for-Cash", the final column of mine published before my termination.
That afternoon, and twice a day for the better part of a week, handfuls of pennies from my dorm-mates began showing up in the lock of my door.
I guess
nobody told them that a proper Pascagoula Penny Prank* uses no more than four or five coins and a piece of Scotch tape over the door-latch. Use too many pennies--like, you know,
twenty or thirty--loose like that, and they shift, rub and slide against each other... and, instead of jamming the lock shut, they wind up spilling out everywhere and looking more like a nice little reward that the terrible inconvenience it's intended to be. Oh, and don't do the same dopey gag twice a day for like, three whole days; that's
literally throwing money at a problem. Look, Herald staffers received a salary of $40 a semester. Not weekly, not per month: a
semester. That comes out to a grand total of two twenty-three a week. So, naturally, getting paid half your salary in change just for opening a door is exciting. Especially if there's a
wheat penny or two in that mess; those can be worth at least four, five bucks apiece. Congratulations, jackass, you just bought your intended victim lunch. Hope you're proud.
I touted those three days' experience as a positive one online and
in print for years before I was set straight about the true intent hiding behind those pennies, and I must admit, it made me feel like a goob. Pranks are pretty silly and sophomoric to begin with, and if you
must play them, at least learn up on how to do them
right, otherwise you look even stupider than you already are. It really makes me wonder: if liberals can do that much harm with their bumbling, passive-aggressive nonsense, imagine how terribly dangerous and destructive they could be if they were actually a competent and focused force.
Br
rrrrrrrrrrr.
Adios for this week.
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* Dubbed this by Harbinger advisor Rhea Borstein in "
Try A Little Tenderness". A more nasty version of the prank involving setting a piece of the hall carpet on fire and letting the smoke drift underneath the door is later seen in "
Dead Residents". I wouldn't recommend trying this in
your residence hall, however; this is when a sophomoric and silly stunt crosses over into actual jail time.
