Please Pants Responsibly

I think I’ve mentioned quite a bit that I like to prank people. In my opinion, a well-planned prank is up there among the most satisfying of activities. However, a poorly-planned prank is as bad as bad can be. And unfortunately, I’ve had my fair share of poor planning. For instance, there was one day in high school when I was hanging out with some friends of mine and my older brother. We were chilling out, relaxing, acting all cool. Playing some b-ball outside of the school. Actually we were throwing a football around in the front yard and waving at passing cars. (We thought it was fun to pretend like we knew the drivers.) So my older brother stopped to wave at one of the cars when I was struck by a sudden idea. I decided that it would be a perfect time to “pants” him and show the driver what type of briefs my brother wears. The poorly-planned part of the prank was the fact that he was wearing silk boxers, instead of the expected briefs. So when I firmly and quickly grabbed his shorts, I also grabbed a handful of his boxers. What that meant for the stranger driving past was that he (or she) was not granted a view of undergarments, but rather became better acquainted with my brother than most people ever will be. I, on the other hand, was squatting with my face extremely too close to a sight that still haunts my nightmares.

Needless to say, my brother was upset with me. I apologized profusely for days, assuring him that my intentions were not so sinister as to include a public display of that nature. (“Why would I do that to anyone? That driver didn’t deserve that.”) He didn’t take too kindly to my sarcastic apology. But I would rather have him yell at me for hours than receive his return prank the following month.

He’d read a story online about a person getting revenge on someone by hiding something in their curtain rods. So he repeated the prank on me, altering it slightly to include my car. So weeks after the original incident I began to smell something a little unpleasant when I got in my car. And over the following days, it went from unpleasant to repulsive. Finally, it was all I could do to even drive my car anymore without leaning my head out the window. And I had to burn matches every time I stopped at a traffic light. I scoured my car when the smell started and couldn’t find the source. And I began a daily onslaught of Febreeze and Lysol in every corner and crevice of my vehicle. I had to eventually concede defeat and beg him to tell me how to get the smell out. He agreed that we were even, so he went to my car and used a screwdriver and some gloves to pull out three long-dead fish from my door panel.