Millersville University - Touchstone Yearbook (Millersville, PA)

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Expect It When You Least Expect It Practical Joking—an Art Perfected in College Practical Jokes, those jokes carried out in actions to excite laughter or amuse, have been part of people’s lives since the very beginning q( time. The art of performing practical Jokes is a complex one. where a person must be aware of several things. First a' person must know what joke to play: second who to Two practical jokes were the objects of attention as a group of hungry students paraded down the steps to Lyle Cafeteria. - Photo by Steve Dan orth play the joke on. and finally, when and where to perform the Joke. A perfect excuse for a practical joke is special days such as: April Fool's Day. birth- days. and engagements. Candles that won't blow out are popular birthday gags, as is switching the sugar and salt at the dinner table on April Fool's Day. Students when questioned as to whether or not they have ever played a practical joke on someone almost unanimously admitted that they had. Most students play practical Jokes simply to get even, but then there are also those persons who simply enjoy performing practical jokes — these are the people with which the rest of the student body is getting even. College dorms are an excellent place to play practical jokes. A roommate can be easily persuaded to become an accomplice to a Jpke. One innocently returns from a class and finds all of their socks all tied together and strung from one end of the room to the other: or possibly the posters on their dorm walls hung upside-down. Several students, wishing to remain anonymous, claimed to have had Jokes played on them or played Jokes on others themselves. A freshman was putting toothpaste on her toothbrush one evening only to discover shriveled up raisins In her toothpaste tube. Her roommate had implanted the raisins in the tube so she could watch her reaction. The jokec's reaction was to implant the raisins in the jokers soap with nailpolish. Back and forth the two went, each one trying to top the other's Joke. The showers in a dorm are a popular place for practical jokes. Jill O'Neal remembers 24 Practical Jokes

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 Dorm rooms were sometimes too confined for these people who need their space. Here, two friends move to a stairwell and play their guitars. • Photo by Merin Studio Cafeteria food wasn't always filling. Krista Miller prepares a real meal. -Photo by Johnna Pinney begin to work on each other’s nerves. Share and share alike is a phrase which is familiar to many, and yet some roommates practice it too much. When clothes begin to disappear from one roommate’s closets and drawers and magically reappear in the other roommates wash basket, or the chocolate cake your mother baked you Is all gone, and you didn't eat any of it. it can be mildly irritating. However, when you discover that your roommate has been using your toothbrush to clean dust off his records, or uses your best set of sheets to make a banner for her sorority, tempers will tend to flare. Often, roommates do not get along simply because they have nothing in common. They each have different majors, activity interests. and friends, and their worlds do not interact, so they are uncomfortable with each other. They spend more and more time outside of the room, and some roommates become like strangers to each other. Many times the problems roommates encounter can be solved, and the two adjust, and become close friends. However, others are not so lucky. They end up searching for other roommates with whom they are more compatable. and with who they will have a positive experience. Steve Keefer Roommate Quirks 23

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once having all of her clothes taken from the shower room and having to return to her room wrapped In a shower curtain. One person remembers. Last year in chemistry class we waited for our professor to leave the classroom, and then we turned all the gas nozzels on. We then pretended to pass out. When the prof returned, he picked up a chair and threw it through the window.” Not all jokes end up as planned originally by the joker, or in this case — Jokers. Three years ago a graduating senior somehow planted a pig In Lyle Dining Hall. The pig ran from table to table searching for food and trying to get away from its cheering audience. Eventually. the pig was hauled off by security ... for not having a meal ticket. Life at college can sometimes prove too boring and testing on the nerves. Fortunately, for all of us. every dorm floor and every apartment has at least one person that keeps the humor Dorm rooms were the setting for many practical jokes. By the look on her face. Lisa Buohl is obviously the perpertraiter and not the victim of a prank. - Photo by Lisa Saylor A major ingredient in pulling off a good joke is finding good prey. Although totally soaked. Andy Grimm doesn't seem ready to get revenge on the pranksters. - Photo by Lisa Saylor rolling. Never a dull moment goes by when you are in college, and by the time students graduate they arc sure to have had a joke played on them or caught the plague and attacked an innocent victim with a joke or two of their own. Reeky Moyer Susan L. Seibel Practical Jokes 25