The names have been omitted to protect the guilty.
Pranks….Get a group of sportsmen together and there is bound to be pranks. It is part of the human psyche to pick on the weak, torment the cocky, and raise hell with the unsuspecting. Most of the time pranks are harmless, and often times pretty funny. Like anything, some go overboard so there is a fine line between humorous and hurtful.
Through the years, I have seen some pretty funny stuff and heard of some outrageous pranks being pulled off. Recently there was a gag which I felt falls into the spectacular category.
During many tournament events, anglers take up residence in small hotels or small bed and breakfast type residences. Each night the parking lots of these locations are chalked full of expensive boats (covered with boat covers) with power cords running out to the boat to charge the batteries. Exhausted anglers retire early, knowing that their next day will begin as early as 3 am. This leaves an opportunity for pranksters to pull off some magic in the cover of the night.
In this particular case, our boat owner arrives to his rig early in the morning. As he begins to unsnap his boat cover, small white items start to fall as the cover becomes looser. Being so early in the morning, thought processes tend to function less keenly as later in the day. Our victim continues to unwrap his boat, now with a sense of curiosity. As the cover is pulled back, he gasps in horror.
The 20 foot fiberglass boat is completely filled with packing peanuts. Not just a few, but tens of thousands, enough to fill the entire hollowed areas inside the boat. Inside the boat, our angler stands nearly waist high in the little white nuggets. I had to wonder if every Staples store within a hundred mile radius had been bought out of the packing materials.
This was a prank that took time, thought and coordination.
The aftermath of clean up still needs to be addressed. What do you do with all of the packing peanuts? How do you get them out of the boat? What do you store them in? And the most important question of all, who did this and how will you get them back?
The best part of practical jokes is the revenge. Time will tell what the response will be…….but rest assured, I can guarantee it will be epic.
