Lights Out

We all have friends that are affectionately know to us by nicknames. These terms of endearment are usually cute or funny and there is always a reason behind the name. My son's nickname is Boo, because he loved Yogi Bear as a baby. Our oldest daughter is Chickie, our youngest daughter is Mouse because when she was a baby she would squeak like a mouse. Because I was so big as a baby mine was Hoss. From the T.V. show Bonanza.

I have a very dear friend of mine, Greg, whom I affectionately call "Bitch". I even have him listed as "Bitch" in my cell phone contact list and I have voice dial so I will say "Call Bitch, and there he is".

As I have stated before I am a huge fan of practical jokes. When a situation presents itself I have to take advantage of it. Greg has been on the receiving end of some of my better ones. This is one of them. Before I get into it though let me start off with a little background.

Greg and I met in 2000. I had been in sales for several years but I didn't have any experience in home loans or mortgages. I had talked to several people who were in the business and I really wanted to make the transition to mortgage lending.  I found a company that was looking for people with sales experience but with limited or little mortgage experience. They wanted to train them their way. This seemed perfect for me, so I went and applied. Now at the time I had real long hair. It was down to the middle of my back. I always kept it pony tailed and neat but it was real long. I met with the owner of the company and I had a great interview, but I didn't hear anything back.

About a month later I decided to cut my hair and donate it to the Locks of Love charity. I had let my hair grow for about 10 years but there was a little 5 yr. old girl at the salon where I was getting my hair cut that was going through chemo. She was the cutest little girl. She had lost all of her hair and she kept commenting on how pretty my hair was. Her mother was in the chair right next to mine and this little girl would "pet" my hair and talk about how pretty it was. She just tore at my heart.

I went into the back and asked the manager if I cut my hair and donated it, if I could donate it to a specific person?  She called their Locks of Love contact and they told her what needed to be done to make sure that the little girl got my hair. The look on her and her mothers faces when I told them that she was going to get a wig made out of my hair was priceless. I came home with all my hair cut off. It made Julie cry but after I told her what happened she understood.

Shortly after that I I went to work for Beneficial Finance. It wasn't the best job in the world but it introduced me to the financial world and gave me the opportunity to get some experience.

About 9 months later, I heard a commercial on the radio from the original company that I had applied for. They were hiring again. I was right down the road so I called and asked if I could come in for an interview. They said sure. That's how I met my "Bitch".

Greg had been hired by the owner to take over the day to day operations of the business and office. He had been hired to come in, weed out the people who were just taking up space, hire and train new people, and basically re-vamp the whole operation.

From the second that Greg and I met there was an instant friendship. We hit it off right away. I later learned that the owner had originally wanted to hire me the first time I came in but didn't because my hair was to long.

My office was right next to Greg's and we had a connecting door. Greg started my training and started teaching me everything about the mortgage business. I took all of the training courses that I could and after about 4 months I became the assistant manager and started doing some training on my own.

From practically day one though, the pranks started. We would go back and forth pranking each other. I would steal his name plate and tape fake names over it; Haywood Jabloughme (hey would ya blow me was one of my favorites). It was funny to see the peoples response when they sat at his desk. He would prank me back but I would usually come out on top.

No matter what the prank, how much it burned the other person, we would always have friendly banter. We never said anything angry back and forth, would laugh and take friendly jabs at each other, but it was always friends joking around.

The building that we worked at is an 8 story building out by Kellogg and Rock Rd. here in Wichita. It has restrooms on each floor but they are very small and anyone that is any bigger than an extra from The Wizard of Oz has a hard time fitting into the stalls. Now Greg is a bigger guy. He is not as tall as me by no means but he has some girth to him. He Carry's it rather well but even so. The only bathroom in the entire building that had any room in it is on the ground floor so whenever either of us had to go it was usually downstairs. 

One day a situation presented itself that I couldn't pass up.

So here I am sitting in my office and Greg stops by the door and tells me that he has to go drop some kids off at the pool and that he'll be right back.

A plan starts to formulate.

The bathroom downstairs has a single stall and a urinal against the right hand wall. You go inside and about 8 feet from the door is the entrance to the stall. It is a handicap stall so it's pretty decent sized and on the other side of the stall is the urinal. On the other side, to the left is a couple of sinks. The light switch is right inside the door.

I waited a couple of minutes and run downstairs. I open the door to the bathroom and I can see Greg's feet under the stall wall. I notice that no one else is in there except for Greg so I turned off the light and, to the screams of Greg, ran back upstairs. Greg immediately starts yelling for someone to turn the light back on. I get back up to my office and go back to work. This whole thing takes me about 2 minutes. No one even noticed that I was gone.

About 15 minutes later Greg comes into my office red faced and ranting. He comes in and the first thing he says in "thanks for turning out the light asshole".  He immediately starts accusing me of turning the light off. He's all over the place, not making much sense. He wasn't yelling at me but he was a little pissed about what had happened. I finally got him to calm down enough to tell me what happened. All the time denying that I had anything to do with it.

He said he was just setting there when someone turned the lights off on him. He was totally indisposed. He started calling for help and after a couple of minutes, when no one came in, he realized that he is going to have to turn the light on himself. So he gathers his pants around his knees and starts duck walking to the door. He said that just as he got to the door, it opened up and this guy walks in. He turns the lights on and of course the first thing he sees is Greg standing there with his pants bunched around his knees bent over doing the poopy duck walk. He said they looked at each other speechless both with the "deer caught in the headlights" look. This guy is staring at Greg with his pants down and Greg is embarrassed all to hell duck walking back to the stall trying to explain why he's running around a dark bathroom with his pants around his ankles.

He's telling me all of this and I'm just dying. I am laughing so hard that I am crying. This joke went WAY beyond what I was expecting. I thought that he would be in there for a minute or so then someone would turn the light on and that would be it. Little did I know it was going to turn out like this.

I had him convinced that it wasn't me and he's plotting the death of the person that did it if he should ever find him. After about fifteen minuets I couldn't take it anymore. This prank turned out to good for me not to claim it so I finally came clean. I took full responsibility and after going over it again several times, we were both laughing. Of course by this time the story was making it's way around the entire office and you could hear the laughter spreading as it made it's way around.

He vowed revenge.

Over the next several weeks he watched me like a hawk. It was always in the back of my mind that he was waiting for the chance to get me. I let the anticipation for him build to the point that he was lurking around the corners and trying to turn every little thing into an opportunity to get me.

I finally decided one day that I was going to "let him" get me. I told him that I needed to go the bathroom. I saw the glint in his eyes as I turned and walked away.

I came back about 15 minutes later and he was kicked back in his chair with his feet up on the desk and as soon as he saw me he started laughing as hard as he could.
I said "whats so funny"?
He looked at me and said "I FINALLY GOT YOU!!!!. YOU THOUGHT I FORGOT DIDN'T YOU? 
I said "what the hell are you talking about"?
He said "The lights. I am the one who turned the lights out on you."
I said "No one turned the lights out on me."
He said "You were downstairs in the stall and I turned the lights out on you."
I said "NO. I went upstairs. I knew you were going to do something so I went up instead of down."
Now he was really confused and kept going on because he thought he had gotten me. He said "I got you. I know it was you." I saw your feet under the stall. I kept telling him that it wasn't me but he kept insisting that he got me.

We were "arguing" back and forth when the receptionist called back and said that Greg's next appointment was there. He told her to bring him back.

This guys walks into Greg's office with an obvious attitude and sits down in one of the guest chairs.
Greg introduces himself, introduces me and ask the guy how he was doing.
He looks at Greg and says "WELL MY DAY WAS GOING GREAT UNTIL SOME ASSHOLE DECIDED TO TURN THE LIGHTS OUT ON ME WHILE I WAS TAKING A SHIT!!!!"

I had to run out of the office to keep from busting up laughing in front of this guy. One of my best practical jokes turned out to be done by someone else to a total stranger.