Sunday, June 17, 2007

Legacy of the Motel West BBS (circa 1987)

I've been writing back and forth with Sir Duke, the sysop of the old Motel West BBS that I belonged to in the late 1980's. We've been swapping stories about our times at Chevron - he worked graveyards for a year or so and I've been working part time at one for 3 years now. He got on the subject of practical jokes, which reminded me of one I pulled at Churchill Jr. that I'm particularly proud of :
I haven’t pulled many practical jokes at the Chevron, but I’ve done some good ones at the schools I’ve been at. One of the best ones I can think of was on April 1st, about 10 years ago. The Spanish teacher and the Vice Principal at the school were (well, still are) major Diet Coke addicts. I made sure I worked late the night before the 1st, they both had left the building and I pulled out $20 in quarters and bought all the Diet Coke out of the faculty vending machine. Then I talked one of the custodians into letting me into the Vice Principal’s office and the Spanish teacher’s room and cleaned out their personal stashes. Pretty much cleaned out all the Diet Cokes in the entire building. Put them in the cooler and brought them home. The next day (April 1st) I show up and hide the cooler in the auditorium, and say absolutely nothing to anyone. Halfway through 2nd period the Spanish teacher shows up at my room, murderous look in her eye and says, sounding remarkably like “The Exorcist”, “GIVE ME A DIET COKE!” Why do you think I brought a cooler full of Diet Cokes to school, I knew my life was on the line. I run off to the auditorium, get her a couple dripping, cold cans and I could see the Devil leave her body. Didn’t hear anything from the Vice Principal, so at lunch I get another ice cold can and bring it down to her. When I get there, she’s drinking a warm 4 month old Diet Coke (it had the Christmas lable on it) that she found in the bottom of her closet. Now, this may not be reality, but it’s the way I remember it – she see’s the can, dripping cold water and her tongue comes out and drools, just like Homer Simpson. I swear. They ended up buying back all the soda, I reclaimed my $20 bucks.
Anyway, if you have any good ones. go ahead and post it here - always like a good, tasteful practical joke

12 comments:

A Paperback Writer said...

Oh my. I could write you a handbook on this.
There was the time, many years ago, when we used to have a competition for which class could collect the most cans for the food drive between Thanksgiving and Christmas. To give you an idea of how steep this was, there was one year my kids collected 1100 (yes, that's eleven hundred, no typo) cans, and we took 3rd place.
Well, there was a Spanish teacher (no one you knew, a real jerk, too) who ALWAYS cheated by getting his kids to start in August. After about 3 years of his doing this, the three of us (the terrible trio of academic team mentors) got sick of it. Since the academic team practices until long after normal people have gone home, it was no big deal for the team, using the social studies mentor's (yes, you know who I mean) key, to get into this guy's relocatable and "remove" the cans for safe keeping. He had over 3000 cans, and the team united into a workline, loading them into the car trunks of parents waiting to pick up the kids.
The Spanish teacher went ballistic the next day, insisting on searching the history teacher's room. We waited until the day before break, then brought every can back (because we wanted the hungry people to have the cans, of course, we just wanted to teach the cheater a lesson). Of course, at my insistence, we built a wall just inside the doorway of his relo, so that he would have to move several hundred cans just to enter and then move ALL the cans before the kids could use the room.
He was a lot less cocky about winning that year.

Max Sartin said...

Ok Writer, we are officially having a cyber-relationship. I've been working on the blog for about 45 minutes now, and several times as I'm working that annoying, yet useful, little box in the bottom right hand corner pops up with yet another notice of a message from you.

Nighty-night cyber-honey.......

A Paperback Writer said...

Hey, this is the closest thing to a relationship I've had in years. I'll take what I can get at this point.
Kisses. ;)

A Paperback Writer said...

Uh, Max? This color scheme is A LOT harder to read than the last one.

Max Sartin said...

Geeze, complain, complain, complain. Now you're taking this cyber-spouse thing too far.....

A Paperback Writer said...

Really? Funny how you changed it to an easier-to-read combination, though.....
:)
This one's fine, dear. You can keep it if you like.
(Uh, thanks for picking something easier to read.)

A Paperback Writer said...

Oh, and by the way...
This cyber relationship really is the epitome of safe sex, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't get much safer than this.

Max Sartin said...

Of course I'm gonna change it - it's the cyber-equivalent of repainting the bedroom for the n-teenth time because that "wasn't quite the right red."

As for the safe sex comment - it does get a lot more fun than this though, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.... :)

A Paperback Writer said...

Are you insinuating that blog posting is NOT the most fun you've had this month? Wow.
However, I suspect that for this to be less safe and more fun we might actually try being in the same building together at the same time.
(Nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat....)

Max Sartin said...

Actually, it IS the most exciting thing I've done this month. That's more a sad comment on my social life rather than the excitement of blogging......

A Paperback Writer said...

Yeah, I understand. Me, too. Which is why we're having this conversation via blog comments, I suppose.
Well, I'm off to bed now. Good night.

TM.Cavalier said...

20th Anniversary of the Motel West? Gads we're getting old. Better dust off the 1200 baud modem and see if it can still dial up.

Fun Fun...
Midnight Cavalier