There were so many pranks I pulled as a kid (and even into my early 20s which I might share later, but those were convoluted and was typically an effort of 5 of us working together) that it's a wonder I lived this long. Many of those that I'm embarrassed by in retrospect were these, in retrospect. A very simple one to explain is that me and friends grabbed some condoms in a store and started slipping them into the purses for sale because we knew that store policy was to check them for shoplifted items when ringing them up. At the time (I was 14), I thought it was hilarious. Now I look back at myself doing that and cringe. (Another one was when I put a friend's bra in the freezer as this wasn't her house--nothing going on between us, this was a party--and it was the one she'd put on when she got up, but thankfully for her I fell asleep before I could put it next to her before she woke up....woke up to her outrage as she found her bra in the freezer).
When I was 13 I got invited to a high school party (by my high school cousin) because they wanted to meet the girl that so outraged the most powerful preacher in town. This was a keg party in a dry county (meaning that they don't legally sell or profit from alcohol, though it was legal to have, but this party was against the law because you had to pay a dollar to get in, and we were underage) and it was a wild one (and just one of the reasons I know people in the sticks aren't the repressed people they're thought of being). It got raided (not sure if the deputies heard of it through the grapevine or if the music and lights in the pasture were that evident) but as we were well out in pasture with lookouts, we saw the cars with headlights coming down and most of us got away (my cousin even brought a flashlight just in case that happened, and we got home following some railroad tracks in the woods). The deputies raiding it was the highlight of the party, with the only ones caught being those who had parked trucks there and one, so I heard, who tried to take a keg with him (which turned out to have been empty anyway, but again that was just what I heard).
The time I did shrooms at 14 (which the same cousin made) was an even wilder time but I don't feel like talking about that. I actually think it did some good for me, though, allowing me to realize things I otherwise wouldn't have, and that it indirectly saved my life over a year later. Way too long and personal to share, though.
But perhaps the most enlightening prank (as a kid anyway) was a game I played with friends when I was 16 called Rumors. I was then with people who, like me, been the subject of outrageous rumors without even a grain of truth and we wondered what people were willing to believe. We were careful not to be cruel in the rumors we started though they could easily become cruel as the rumors grew and were twisted while being spread to others. It was entertaining how fast they could grow. But one day a friend of ours didn't show up on Friday so we took the opportunity to start a rumor that she had attempted suicide (different people gave a different method, we wanted to see which one stuck) and by Monday I heard people on the bus saying they'd been to her funeral! She was very unhappy with us because that rumor spread to the parents who had called our friends parents, who in turn were very upset over the very idea, and suffice to say we never played that game again. But I did learn a healthy distrust of what I heard, be it school rumor, word on the streets, small town or office gossip...or even headlines. A very useful skill indeed. We humans are a gullible species.
