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Welcome to the Ages English Podcast.
My name is Jack and I'm here with my co-host, Sochil.
And today we're going to talk about practical jokes or pranks.
That's another word we use to describe a practical joke.
And Sochil...
Um, this was your idea.
So maybe you could tell me what you were thinking.
And so far as like the theme of today's episode.
Yeah.
When I was a very little kid um, The pranks that were super common here in America were TPing prank calls, or sometimes called crank calls with a C, which is just the same thing, where they call you and get you going.
One of the really common ones was uh, calling someone and saying um hey, is your refrigerator running?
Yes, better go catch it, or something.
So like just stupid things you know.
Um, but it's just supposed to be a bit of fun.
And often it's done by like teenagers or college kids.
It's really common during the Halloween season.
And I was reminded of this because I had not seen TPing in a long time.
And for our listeners who don't know what that is, TP stands for toilet paper.
And TPing just includes people throwing a roll of toilet paper like over trees in the house like, and covering everything in toilet paper and it's just a nuisance to get off for, like the homeowner or the people living there and I don't know.
It's like supposed to be funny, I guess, and I'd never done it, because it kind of By the time I was a kid and such I feel like, and then COVID hit, you know, when I was like in my college days as well, in the very early 20s and late teens, the price of toilet paper really shot up.
I never saw, you know, I never saw this.
I mean, it's like $16 or almost $17 for a pack of Charmin TP.
So you guys, you're ready to like, let's do a practical joke.
Let's TP somebody's house.
And, um, You throw the toilet paper, you know, like you throw it as like a stream, like streamer.
So you...
You hold it in a certain way, so when you throw it it makes like a long ribbon, kind of like a Yeah.
And you put it over the trees or over the house.
Over the roof of the house.
Yeah, over the roof and it just hangs down and it just looks like...
Yeah, it just looks like it's just a mess, you know, like of just long streams of white toilet paper.
It's a classic prank.
But I, you know, for me, I never enjoyed.
I don't like practical jokes.
I hate them, actually.
Oh, okay.
Interesting.
Interesting.
Yeah, I don't.
I'm way too sensitive for practical jokes.
Irritated.
Sorry.
Never irritated, but I get deeply hurt.
Like it hurts my feelings.
By someone pranking you?
Sorry, go ahead.
I don't mean to judge you.
I'm just surprised.
No, no.
It's just like it's like in my mind.
I don't know why, but it's because I'm hypersensitive.
Like my mother is also hypersensitive.
My daughter's, I think, got some of that and hypersensitive people. internalize everything.
So if you do a practical joke on me, my first place in my mind goes is I thought you liked me, you know.
Oh no, that's so sad.
Oh my God.
That's like, um, kind of like rejection dysphoria is the same thing.
I think that does happen to HSPs, which for people, our listeners are, it's like an MBTI thing.
No, HSP is like hypersensitive people or highly sensitive people.
And then rejection.
Dysphoria is something that happens with HSPs or people with like, ADHD and sometimes autism and stuff where, like you feel like a rejection from something like that, like being pranked.
And it kind of sends you spiraling.
Into, like, nobody likes me.
These people don't like me.
Yeah, yeah.
I thought they were my friends.
But then they did this thing to me that was, you know, not very nice.
And also, the other thing I don't like about... I love...
I love when people are funny, but the only kind of comedy I like is like not the punching down type.
You know where you're alienating one group and saying they're stupid and you know how could they be so pathetic.
Yeah.
I like the kind of where comedians will talk about how they did something stupid.
Self-deprecating.
Self-deprecating, exactly.
Yes, kind of humor, and that's my father's personality, you know, like he's very funny, but in a very self-deprecating way, and so he's always the butt of his own jokes.
Um never ever uh, at the expense of someone else's feelings or something.
So um, i've always been that way.
Um, I think that's the right way to be.
I don't know if I've ever been pranked probably when I was a little kid, and especially by my sister gosh, older sister but I don't think if I've ever been pranked besides that.
And I relate to what you're saying, Jack.
I definitely was highly sensitive, especially when I was younger and kind of suffered from rejection dysphoria.
And I think I don't really have any friends nowadays, so maybe I don't really feel that way anymore. more, but I barely have friends.
It's like you get to a certain point in adulthood and it's just kind of different on your friendships versus early college or high school.
But I do remember pranking someone in high school.
He had really um, pissed me off and then, as a petty, we we were fine, we were cool.
After that i don't remember what he did, but as a petty prank afterwards i saran wrapped his car With a friend, with a mutual friend.
And so that was very funny, because we just saran wrapped his car, which made it really hard for him to open the door and get inside.
Saran wrap.
For those that are listeners, who don't know, it's like that clear food wrapping material.
So he probably didn't.
You go to open your car door and you realize that you can't get into your car.
It's just covered in this clear um yeah, exactly certain clear film.
Like clear film yeah, but it's very irritating because, like you can't like it's it's it's, it's surprisingly just like one or two tubes will saran wrap like an entire car to the point that it's very hard to open.
Like you can't open the door, You had to cut it out.
Yeah, they had to eventually cut it open with a pocket knife.
But anyway, my friend and I were laughing.
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Ha ha and and anyway, in in good faith, he thought it was funny as well.
I think so it was.
It was all okay, but because he did say, you know, he had a good laugh, but yeah, it is just very irritating and i feel like that's kind of a little bit of the spirit of an american prank.
Um Well April, April 1st is that is called April Fool's Day.
And if you're going to do it was April 1st.
Yeah, I think.
Yes.
Good.
Good.
Yeah.
Well, that's just.
That's the traditional day when you do practical jokes on people and stuff like that.
And so we we have all kind, you know, they're also there's a much worse version of the saran wrap is the toilet. um saran wrapping the toilet so that's terrible yeah yeah it's that that's a hot mess uh yeah of a of a practical joke not not funny but um Common college prank, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's funny.
I did do a prank once.
It was quite elaborate, actually.
We invited a friend in high school to go for a walk in the woods and Um or my friends invited him to go for a walk in the woods because we were going to smoke cigars in the middle of the woods.
That was our being, uh, you know, uh, uh, what do you call it?
Like uh, you know, be cool, you know like we're gonna.
Oh yeah, you know, smoking cigars when you're in high school, is seems seems, uh interesting yeah, seems cool, i guess.
Yeah Hey Jack, your mic, cut off, I think.
I know.
My computer is awful.
Gosh.
Nice.
Okay.
You left off where it was cool to smoke cigars in the woods.
Okay.
I'll go back to that sentence.
We were at that point in high school where, you know, we thought it was like cool to be like you know, to smoke cigars secretly.
It was our parents didn't know.
Then anyway, long story short.
I was not there on the walk to smoke the cigars because I was hiding in the woods in a long trench coat and a black mask and holding an axe.
And so I don't know if that's like a prank or you're like traumatizing people out here.
So so when I heard them coming down the path, all my other friends knew I was there.
But the one friend didn't know I was there in the middle of the night.
I jump out and I'm like with this axe and this black mask.
And and and my friends told me they knew I was there and they were scared.
You know like?
So my, my friend, like in a cartoon, he turns around the guy we're pranking.
And he starts running, but it's so muddy on the ground that he's like running in place.
He's not moving anywhere.
Like Scooby-Doo.
Like Scooby-Doo.
And then he just face plants into the mud on his – ruins his shirt, his shorts, everything.
And then my friends all ran away.
And so he and I had to walk together back to the car.
So he knew you were at that point.
I took the mask off at that point.
I'm like, hey, man, sorry.
You are such a jerk.
Jack, you know what's so crazy is that you're so hypocritical.
You're like, that would really hurt.
A little prank would really hurt my feelings.
And then you're like, you traumatize this poor guy who thought you were his friend, too.
Did he ever talk to you again after that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He got over it.
But the funny thing is, we all...
We went back to my best friend's house and this friend he threw his shirt and his shorts into the washing machine and washed his clothes and borrowed some of my friend's clothes.
And then we watched a movie called Rambo 2.
And then there's this one point in the movie Rambo 2, where Rambo he comes out of like this mud house.
And he's just covered in mud to hide from the bad guys.
And we all just started.
We just all died laughing at that point.
And even he started laughing a little bit.
So why did you pick this one poor friend to traumatize?
I think there was like a beef between him and my best friend or something.
And so they wanted to kind of put him back in his place, you know, a little bit.
Dang, that's kind of neat.
Humiliation ritual for sure.
You guys are...
Evil a little bit.
Psychotic, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, that's way meaner than wrapping someone's car.
Geez.
Yeah, yeah.
That's crazy.
I have one other short prank story before we end this.
But when my sister and I were kids, my dad would come and read to us, Which is actually pretty cool when I think about it.
One of the only cool things that my dad did, but he would read us like Harry Potter books or things like that.
And I remember that he would.
We pretended that we were already sleeping and we had these giant stuffed animals that my grandparents had gifted us for Christmas.
And we put them under the covers fully.
So it looked like we were sleeping.
And then we hid underneath the bed.
And when my dad came to like move the covers to see if we were sleeping, we grabbed his ankles from under the bed.
Nice.
Yeah, we scared the crap out of him.
He was shrieking.
It was so funny to us.
You must have taken five years off of his life.
Yeah.
Cause imagine you think your kids are sleeping and you're like, what the hell is under the bed?
That's awesome.
That's a really good one.
Actually.
That's really clever.
I don't know how our little minds came up with that.
That is kind of psychotic too.
We were like, we were little, we were like like under nine or ten, under ten for sure.
Yeah, that's crazy.
Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is if you're going to go, if you're going to go, if you're going to do a prank go, go big, go large.
You know, just traumatize someone.
Yeah, for real.
Yeah.
All right, listeners.
Well, if you have any prank stories, make sure to share them down below or share them in our WeChat group.
That's the A to Z English Podcast WeChat group.
And maybe you can even shoot us an email with some crazy prank stories.
Jack and I would love to read your guys' emails. on air.
So shoot us an email at a to z English podcast at gmail.com.
And we will see you guys next time.
Bye bye.
Bye bye.
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