We couldn't begin to fit Dave Fletcher's epic "Welcome to my Nightmare" submission in one issue. This is the second part of Fletcher's four-part saga of an escalating series of pranks and counter-pranks. The prankster's "two eyes for an eye" code of justice led to some mass destruction of hotel property, but, thankfully, the war games never degenerated into full-scale missile assaults or nuclear winter. -ed.
Now that we have located the hotel room and placed the "Order of the Purple Target" (imaginarily) just below the room number, it was time to devise a plan that would instruct the miscreants in the ways of "get-even" and perhaps persuade them to consider the ramifications of any future action which might involve our room number and the occupants thereof. KISS rule applied – keep it simple, stupid – we arrived at the simplest of plans and proceeded to instruct the miscreants of the cost of admission to the "don't do that again" club.
You know, to be honest I don't even remember what it was, but it failed drastically anyway, so here's the bottom line, later that day, an MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) was placed under our door and targeted at us. After a few exhilarating seconds of "dodge ball" as the dozen bottle rockets came flying under the door, we decided that a more severe method of dealing with the miscreants was required.
Now, since something had flown under our door, we decided that something should fly under theirs. Procuring a large freezer-type baggie from the hotel kitchen, (don't ask, don't tell) I was off to the truck to get a roll of duct tape and drop by the gift shop for the remaining item not currently in our inventory.
Now the baggie was not properly prepared, so first, a layer of duct tape was folded over the edges of the baggie, and then the baggie was wrapped so that all of the plastic bag had a layer of duct tape on it. Then, I removed from the gift shop bag one aerosol can of Noxema Mentholated Lime Shaving Cream, the contents of which were carefully placed into the baggie so that every square centimeter of the bag contained the white, fluffy and quite smelly substance we shall refer to as "snow" from now on.
Snow you say? Well, bear with me for a moment, and you'll see why.
After the bag was loaded, you simply pressed the edge closed. Important Fact: do not engage the zip lock. Doing so will impede the compression of the bag and possibly cause it to rupture unexpectedly. That having been said, the only thing left to do was locate a suitable plunger. The plunger in this case was also known as the local phone book.
Creeping down the hall like a couple of Special Forces operators, we again returned to the door with the purple target on it and slid the still-open end of the baggie containing the snow under the door. Kneeling there and feeling like I should do so much more, I took that phone book from my roommate and held it up over my head as high as I could.
In retrospect, I guess I could say that my arms got tired or something, but that wasn't really the case here, as I used every bit of strength I had to place that phone book squarely on the part of the baggie not facing the floor in an effort to instigate a sudden evacuation of the snow-like material within. It worked. In an instant, the bag was empty and we were in a staircase and gone. We had intended to read about this one in the papers.
After a nice dinner in the hotel lobby restaurant, we went back up to our room to find the purple target door wide open and the two miscreants trying desperately to air the place out. It seems that, as the compression of the baggie occurred, it ejected the "snow" with such force that some of it had actually hit the window on the far side of the two double beds and left almost no unaffected areas in between. That is to say, it turned corners. Even the bathroom was coated with a thin layer of the white fluffy aroma-generating snow and we'd nearly wet our pants laughing so hard.
Figuring point made and the necessity for further action unnecessary, we returned to our lair to bask in the glory known only by victors of any such hostile action. We were allowed that evening to gloat, but the miscreants were not graduates of the school of "Don't Do That Again" just yet.
No, now it takes on a much-larger playing surface – the stage in a 20,000 seater – the following day.
Coming next month: Superglue Saga, Part 3: Adding Injury to Insult
