Gotcha!

As far as I can tell there are two types of kids who go to college: those who have a goal and direction and those who haven’t got a clue. Because I was in the second group, my college days were few.

My wife and I were hosting a group of high school seniors in our living room. Most of them were preparing to leave for colleges in the fall. During the conversations, I was asked about memorable moments I had while attending college. Wow, this put me on the spot and truthfully, I wasn’t prepared to explain why I never finished with a degree. So, I began telling them about what I did remember from my college life . . . pranks.

“Ok, my one and only quarter at a college away from home. Let’s see, it was not so much like a school of learning but more so like going to summer camp,” I started off.

“Excuse me Marty,” said a young man named Branson. “Why do you still have that old cream-colored, touch-tone telephone on the end table? That must be from the 70s. Does it still work?”

Branson was a wiry athletic boy who ran cross country but had the muscles of a wrestler. For the three years we had known each other, he was the victim of my teasing amongst all the high school boys. He was also adept at pulling some pretty good pranks on me also.

“We still have that old land line because every time I call the phone company to cancel it, they tell me that I won’t save any money with it off the package, so I leave it. It gives the house the old retro look.

“Back to my college days, and you will notice I said days, not years. I was very strong in the upper body from working out and climbing ropes. I preferred going to the college gym and the pool instead of studying. I lived in a three-story dorm for men which had dorm parents, who lived off the main lobby, and room advisors on all floors and wings. There were rules at the dorm and fines for breaking the rules.

“For some reason, I was very skilled at avoiding fines for the very violations I instigated, although the rest of the boys who joined me on the pranks were all charged. You can imagine that this caused some degree of resentment.

“Now, I am going to divulge some of my pranks with hopes that you learn from my mistakes and don’t waste your precious years of higher education and your parent’s money.”

The Gotcha

“There was what I called, the Gotcha. Each room had a telephone hanging on the wall. I would go into some other guy’s room when he was gone, remove the receiver from the phone, take my tube of toothpaste and make a thick ring around the earpiece. I then would hang the receiver back on the phone. It was then just a matter of waiting in my room until I heard the guy walking down the hall and I would call his phone. Naturally, not wanting to miss the call, he would run into the room, pull the receiver off the phone and put it to his ear while shouting, ‘hello, hello.’ I would then say into my phone, ‘Gotcha!’ Pulling his receiver away, he would have a white toothpaste ring on the side of his head. This worked on nearly every boy in my wing.”

Soda Can Avalanches

“Next, we did the soda can avalanche, a prank on our room advisor. After the ‘all quiet’ hour, we went to the recycle area and brought out bags of empty soda cans. Then, putting an ear to the room advisor’s door, we listened for his snoring. Once assured that he was asleep, we quietly stacked the cans against his door, covering the whole door up to the top frame. We then banged loudly on his wall and ran. With my room being the closest, I quickly ducked inside, softly closed the door and climbed into bed. The room advisor angrily swung his room door open only to have an avalanche of soda cans fall into his room. He pushed open my room door only to find me ‘asleep’ in my bed. He did catch the other four boys who were fined $20.00 a piece for rule infractions.”

Dorm Olympics

“Now Branson,” I said, “You may find this activity to your liking since you are strong in the chest. It was a little idea I had called Dorm Olympics.

“As I mentioned earlier, I entered college with roughly ten times the strength of an average man. As a matter of fact, in the boys’ physical fitness class, I easily outdid everyone in pull-ups, parallel bar dips and rope climbs. I could also do a lap around the gym in a wheelbarrow race, easily beating anyone else.

“If you have no idea what a wheelbarrow race is, let me explain: It requires two people. One teammate is the wheelbarrow, meaning he gets into a pushup position on the floor, arms extended. The other teammate grabs his legs and lifts them off the ground like the handles on a wheelbarrow. The teammate who is in the wheelbarrow position then uses his arms to run forward while teammate number two holds his legs and runs behind him.

“Our dorm building was T shaped with all the wings coming together in a floor lobby where the stairs went up or down to the ground level.

“The competition was this: racers would start at the far end of their halls next to the fire escapes. Each hall had one wheelbarrow team. On the word ‘go’ the racers would come down their hallways to the lobby, descend the stairs to the main floor lobby, spin around and ascend the stairs to the second floor and race back to where they started.

“We had three teams assembled. Someone stood in the lobby hub in view of the three competitors and yelled, ‘Go!’. Now I might add here that wheelbarrow racing is not the quietest activity in a study dorm. It must also be noted that my wing was directly over the dorm parent’s apartment. The race on the second floor of the dorm shook the building like a cattle stampede.

“My partner and I made it to the second-floor lobby first and descended the stairs to the main lobby. As we spun around and started climbing the stairs again, we passed the two other teams coming down. As they noisily thundered onto the main lobby landing, the door to the dorm parent’s apartment swung open and the husband jumped out.

“What in the bloody heck!!!” he shouted. “You woke up the baby! $25.00 fines for each of you four.”

“My team was safely upstairs and out of sight.

“Of course, I was also known to go beyond obnoxiousness. I would occasionally walk into the bathroom when one of the boys was showering behind the curtain. I’d flick his towel off the peg on the wall and it would drop onto the wet, hairy, drying area. As you can guess, the guys started plotting revenge.

“Now I’m telling you these examples of my college life so that you understand that though pranks and mischief are fun, revenge can be counted on, and it is brutal.

“At the end of the quarter I elected to quit college and return home. This created an urgency amongst those I had pranked and racked up fines on, to get even. The day before I left, I went into the bathroom and found an empty toilet stall, which I entered and seated myself. I noticed, while sitting there, that the roll of toilet paper was empty, so I yelled, ‘Someone bring a roll of TP.’ I heard the odd running of multiple people. That’s service, I thought.

“The bathroom door opened and from under the stall door I could see the feet of five people. Odd, I thought. I don’t need five rolls of toilet paper. They didn’t bring toilet paper, they carried four wastepaper baskets full of water which they dumped over the top of the stall onto my head. One of the guys was also willing to give up his full bottle of Brut Cologne which he also dumped on my head.

“Now I was in a quandary. Sopping wet and stinking of aftershave I had to get to my room to find my shower towel, but I couldn’t pull my sopping wet pants up, so I left the bathroom and waddled with my pants around my ankles down the hall back toward my room. It was then that I heard clapping and women shouting, ‘Yeah, Marty’. I turned and looked down the hall toward the fire door, which was wide open. Outside on the lawn were a large group of freshman girls waving at me.

“Believe me, I thought their revenge on me was over, but it only got worse. I left my wet clothes on the floor of my room, wrapped a towel around my waist and went to the bathroom to shower off the stench of cologne. After finishing my shower, I found my towel lying in the water and hair in the drying area. Wrapping my waist with the wet and hairy towel, I walked back to my room to find they had locked my door with my keys inside. So, my final walk of shame was to go downstairs and walk through a lobby of students while wrapped in a towel to ask the dorm parents for a key.

“When you go away to college next year don’t goof around like I did.  It’s a waste of your parent’s money. Get serious and get your degree. When you get as old as I am you can go back to being a prankster and a kidder because nobody retaliates against an old man.

When the talking was over, the kids got up and some got refreshments, some played board games, and others milled around the house. After everyone had left for the evening, Cheryl and I collapsed in the TV room to watch a show. From outside in the living room, I heard a phone ring.

“Is that the old land line?” I asked Cheryl. “Who would be calling the house on that number?”

I went out into the darkened living room and picked up the receiver.

“Hello,” I said. “This is the Mitchell residence.”

There was no response on the other end, only giggling.

And then came, “Gotcha Marty.”

I attempted to pull the receiver away from my head, but it was firmly adhered by a toothpaste seal.

“I’m going to get you Branson!” I growled.

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