This column was originally going to be about what happens when seven guys live together in a house, and the off-campus experience in general. I feel like I have half accomplished this. I feel stories about corroding dishes and people wiping their asses with towels are worthy of ... well, something.
With this column's credibility in mind, I thought I would share some things that have nothing to do with anything. So far in "Seven on Seven," I have written mostly about the exploits of my off-campus house, of which many installments have been about messing with roommates. Admittedly ridiculous and juvenile, these adventures of ours are not everyday things - not everyone has access to not one, but two gorilla costumes.
Here are some practical jokes that anyone can do, using examples of the things we have done to each other in the past. I will try not to do write anything that has been done too much. Putting a trash barrel full of water leaning against a door is hilarious, but tired. It's been done, and it's messy. I learned about forking when I got to Tufts, but it is not something I am going to do.
One Thursday night this year, one of my housemates went to sleep early, probably around 2 a.m. This was unacceptable. We weighed the options and decided on the "electric guitar wake-up." It's pretty self-explanatory. I took my electric guitar and amp into his room, plugged them in and placed the amp next to his slumbering head, then wailed away at full volume. Why did I do this? It doesn't matter - you do not need reasons for these things. He naturally got upset, yelled a little, then went back to sleep. Three nights later, I had a fog horn go off in my ear, which I certainly deserved.
The key to a good prank is technology. The other day, an argument about whether or not all televisions came with V-chips led to us going into Greg's room and messing with his TV. It turns out, they do all come with the parental control chip, which we instantly programmed on Greg's TV while he was in class. We made it so he was not allowed to watch anything over TV-Y7, or any movies that were R-rated. When he tried to turn to a blocked channel, the screen was black and asked for a password. It was hilarious; he was so confused. He thought that the cable company was punishing us for a late bill and checked every television set before realizing what we had done.
The very next night, my television remote was hidden in the bathroom, which was not funny, because it happened to me. So Greg's batteries have been stolen and are now inside his mattress, waiting for him to find them - the old "princess and the pea" technique.
I think the best one we have pulled recently was to install a program called "VNC" on a housemate's computer. Like the V-chip, it started out harmlessly. We wanted a way to control iTunes from each other's computers so we could listen to music. VNC was an unexpected gift. This is a program that works on computers that are networked, like ours, and all the computers in your dorm. One computer on the network has part of the program on it; we can call this computer "the victim." Other computers on the network, with the other part of the program, can access and control the victim computer, even while someone is using it.
It started off with just one person
controlling the victim. We would do things like close windows, open the Internet and go to animal porn Web sites when he stepped out of the room, and so on. The person had no idea what was going on.
First, he thought it was a virus. He dug through his computer looking for Spyware and deleting things. Luckily, our computer science housemate had cleverly hidden the program. We then started to leave notes, written in Word, for our unfortunate friend. We wrote things about him that the common hacker might not know.
After a week of this, he started to get suspicious. He accused the nerdy roommate, the one that hid the program, of controlling the computer, but it wasn't him. He would try to catch him in the act - sneaking around and busting into rooms, yelling "A-ha!" But it never worked. Soon, we had everyone in on it; we all installed the program. There were times when seven people would be in the kitchen, someone would "walk into the bathroom," and his computer would be flashing "YOU SUCK" in red, blinking letters.
He got so fed up with it, he would unplug his computer while it was under the influence, because whenever he tried to shut it down normally, someone would press "cancel" until he gave up. This lasted for about a month - which was a month of endless humor for us. I highly recommend it.
Good luck, everyone. These are just suggestions. Use them as is, or use them to come up with better ideas. Or don't use them at all. Just keeping screwing with your friends. That's what it's all about. If you do anything incredible, I would love to hear about it.
Dan Tovrov is a junior majoring in English. You can e-mail him at daniel.tovrov@tufts.edu.
