What is your most memorable childhood prank

[malaise]

Our home was on a corner. Our immediate neighbors included three boys. Their dad had a pick up truck. He never parked it in the yard. The bright street light was across the road from our home.
On nights when the parents were out, the guys would stuff an old wallet with paper, tie a cord, place it on our corner and hide either behind the pick up or in the back of it. Folks walking or riding a bike fell for this regularly. As soon as they touched the wallet, the cord would be pulled.
Every freaking teenager within range would howl with laughter. There were more than a few near heart attacks not to mention embarrassment.
We all remember this - it is still hysterically funny to us. Life was so damn simple back then. 😀😀

A happy and healthy 2026 to all DUers

[wcmagumba]

1. I have a couple, in middle school a friend and I found an old hubcap (cars had them in those days) and we would wait

for a car passing his house and roll the hubcap so the driver could see it and then we would run out, grab the hubcap and run, we got chased a few times and when the driver finally realized he still had all his hubcaps, listen to the cursing...the other prank when I was about the same age was to go to the local high school football game where there was a concrete ramp up and down from the outside into the stands and casually toss a few metal washers down that ramp when folks were coming in or out and watch people chase the washers, thinking they were coins, we were scamps...

[malaise]

2. Love it

😀

[berniesandersmittens]

3. We did something similar

Superglued a quarter to the floor in the hall.

[malaise]

7. ROFL

😀

[Beatlelvr]

4. Throwing water balloons at passing cars

Then hiding in bushes. If anyone did that to me now, I'd be really pissed.

[malaise]

10. They'd shoot you today

😀

[PikaBlue]

5. Dead Patty Play Pal

I was gifted a Patty Play Pal doll when I was four years old. For those who aren't familiar with that brand of doll, they were basically life size dolls. My particular doll looked very much like me, especially the hair. One night, I dressed the doll in my pajamas, tucked her into my bed, and then hid in my bedroom closet waiting for my dad to come in to kiss me goodnight. My mother always came in later and she was not as unflappable as my dad so I didn't target her for this prank. I wasn't disappointed with this "joke". My father thought the doll was me and that I was dead. Watching an unflappable, ex marine DI and WWII Pacific Island "clean up crew member" (euphemism for being dropped solo on remote islands occupied by a few Japanese soldiers who were shooting down our planes and giving away troop movements with the goal of unaliving them by any means necessary) , lose his composure was quite amusing. Before you judge that prank as cruel, I should share that I was raised in a home filled with love, laughter, creativity, and humor. Practical jokes were a source of delight and were so treasured that they often become part of graveside eulogies. When I look back on my early life, I remember so much laughter and so much positivity even when times were difficult. Laughter will always be my light in the darkness.

[malaise]

8. Love it

Poor dad 😀

[PikaBlue]

17. I just wanted to laugh at him kissing my doll goodnight

It didn't occur to me that, in a darkened room, he would think I was dead. That was a bonus round for me.

[True Dough]

6. Visiting my grandparents, my dad's folks

They had a BIG floor-model television. It was Christmas and, at age 7 or thereabouts, I was alone in the living room while my folks and grandparents were still conversing around the dining room table.

I grabbed a strand of tinsel off the Christmas tree. I was twirling it around and it got close to the TV screen. I realized that the static electricity made the tinsel stick to the screen. I also saw that it looked very much like a crack.

So I stuck the entire strand to the screen and called my father into the living room.

He came around the corner and I pointed at the TV screen. I looked at him and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."

His eyes were as big as saucers. There's no way he could have afforded to replace that television at that time.

Then I showed him it was a prank. The funny part is that dad was a prankster himself, but it took him quite a while to admit that he saw any humor in my little stunt that day.

[malaise]

9. Bwaaaah

Good one 😀

[MiHale]

11. I hid in my sister's closet at bedtime...

The closet door was directly above and to the right of her bed next to her pillow. As she sat on the side of the bed getting ready to slip under the covers, I slowly, quietly pushed the door open…then fell as formlessly as I could straight to the floor with a loud crash…I can still hear her bloodcurdling scream.

She still punches me when we retell the story.

[malaise]

13. ROFL

[Phoenix61]

12. When I was at summer camp me and a friend

sewed a counselor into his hammock. When he went to get out he rolled over like a sausage on the grill. Still makes me laugh thinking about it. He never did figure out who did it.

[malaise]

14. Hahaha

😀😀

[Hey Joe]

15. It was when I was in 4th grade

At lunchtime we had hotdogs on this particular day, and I thought it would be brilliant fun to play with my food. I took the hotdog and stuck it up from the edge of the table and jiggled it like it was my, uh, you know.
All the boys thought it was hilarious fun and we all laughed and laughed.
In the middle of the next class however there was a knock at the door, a secretary who came to take me to the assistant principal. Seems a lunchroom monitor spotted my routine and I got three HARD whacks with his big paddle.
Shuffled back to class with tears in my eyes and a burned buttocks.
There was no repeat performance.

[malaise]

18. Ouch!

😀

[Dorothy V]

16. Oh Lordy! My friend, a tarantula, and me!

It was the 5th grade, and the school was in the Mojave Desert. October, overcast skies, noon recess. Friend and I spot a tarantula out on the playground, no doubt a male looking for a lady tarantula. Now, I am scared of spiders, much less tarantulas, but my buddy got a gleam in her eye, nudged the spider into her lunchbox, and the plot was hatched! There was a boy who had been bedeviling us, and with me as lookout, she slipped into our classroom and put the tarantula in his desk!
Class starts, the boy opens his desk, and promptly lets out a scream that was surely heard plumb to Vegas! The teacher runs up, takes one look, and her scream was no doubt heard from Berdoo to Albuquerque! Pandemonium! Screams and yells and the class bolting for the door! The school custodian had to come and de-tarantula the kid's desk.
Unfortunately my buddy and I gave ourselves away by laughing our fool heads off. Swats in the office and then more trouble at home. It was worth it though!
That boy never bothered us again.

[malaise]

19. You win the thread 😀

and also won that day.

[Grim Chieftain]

20. Really bizarre

When I was a little girl of seven or eight, my best friend and I were playing in her front yard when we heard the music from the ice cream truck a block or two away. We didn't have any money, so we decided to grab some ketchup from the fridge and slather ourselves with it and lay spread eagle in the yard, The hope was the ice cream truck driver would see two kids covered with "blood" and give us some ice cream to revive us. Yep. It happened.

[malaise]

21. You folks have me howling with laughter

It worked

[bif]

22. One I pulled on my best friend

We were about 11 or 12 and he came over for lunch. After we ate we were doing the dishes and he accidentally dropped a spoon into the garbage disposal. When he asked me what he should do, I told him he had to get it out. So, with a little bit of angst, he stuck his hand into the disposal. I noticed our electric blender was on the counter where he couldn't see it. It was an old noisy thing. When his hand was fully in the disposal I turned the bender on. I think my friend jumped about 10 feet in the air.

[malaise]

24. Too wicked

[nuxvomica]

23. The invisible wire trick

At twilight, we would have two kids standing on one side of the road in our sleepy neighborhood. When we saw a car coming, just as the car approached, one kid would cross the road then both kids mimed pulling on an invisible wire, standing with one leg forward and the other back, as though it took some effort to keep the wire taut. Most cars would stop abruptly just short of the "wire" and then we'd run.

[malaise]

25. LOL

Those were days of innocent fun

[FarPoint]

26. I placed a Garter snake, small one....

into my fathers lunchbox..... He was surprised.

Yea, I was a Tom Girl type...

[malaise]

27. I'm guessing surprised is an under statement

Did he know you did it?
Happy New Year to you and yours.

[FarPoint]

32. He figured it out rather quickly...

He is the one who taught me how to catch them...No one else in the home would even try or had a desire to do that...not even my brother.

Happy New Year to you...

[3catwoman3]

28. Not a prank, exactly, but a "gotcha" moment that I still relish 60+ years later.

My own last name is Ball, and it was the subject of many jokes when I was growing up. Mostly athletic, like, "How's your sister Basket," and the like. Annoying but no big deal.

The anatomic ones were a different story. In 7th grade homeroom, I was greeted every morning by a male classmate who thought he was oh-so-funny. Without fail, he would leer at me and say, "Hiya, Ball. How're they hangin'?" His friends would laugh their butts off at his cleverness. This was 1962-63 and no one paid any to what would today be considered sexual harassment. My homeroom teacher was a man, so I never said anything to him as I knew that if I did, and if he spoke to the classmate, that would only make it worse. I dreaded going onto that classroom every damn day.

After much rehearsal in my head, so I was sure I could carry it off, one morning I stared the guy down, and when he asked his usual dumb ass question, I replied "Fine, thanks, and how are yours?" His buddies laughed even harder than usual, and it shut him right up. He never said it again.

As I said, even all these years later, it is a moment of triumph that I still relish.

[malaise]

30. Love it

Rec. 😀

[marked50]

29. This prank was at a little older age. Involved a '57 Chevy.

My older brother who had just turned 16 bought an old "57 Chevy. There were speakers on the back seat window deck but they didn't work. We unscrewed them so they could easy pop out.

Now if you're not familiar with the trunk on that car I can tell you you could almost stuff a VW into it.

Well, my job was to sit in the trunk and as he was driving around with his friends (back seat filled) I would randomly reach up through the speaker hole and grab someone by the shoulder. What fun Freak out time for everyone involved. Then the game was to get new "friends" to enjoy the fun...

[malaise]

31. Good one

Haha😀