"KB Garage" (kb-garage)
11/12/2014 at 15:13 • Filed to: None
15
4|
"KB Garage" (kb-garage)
11/12/2014 at 15:13 • Filed to: None | 15
| 4 |
Sadly, today, one of the longest pranks I've ever been a part of came to an end.
It all started when a great friend agreed to help me move a couple of couches from my storage building to my house. I came home a couple of days after moving the couches and find an envelope that contained a Toyota key and a key fob. There's a note included that says, "I used to own your truck and found these in a drawer. Truck still looks good." The only problem was, I didn't own a truck and more specifically I didn't own a Toyota. I thought it must have been a mistake and the person accidentally dropped the key in the wrong mail box. I soon discovered that none of my neighbors drove Toyota trucks either. I was perplexed for about a week, finally gave up wondering about it, and put the key and fob in a kitchen drawer and forgot about them.
A couple of months pass before the same friend who helped me move my couch came to my house to hang out. As he's backing out of the driveway, I stood in the garage and it hit me like a ton of bricks. He's driving a Toyota SUV. I work with this guy every single day. Shame on me for not recognizing it before then, but for some reason, when I saw his truck parked in the same spot in my driveway as it had been when we moved the couches, it all clicked. The clouds parted, the sun shone through, and a choir sang with the most fulfilling "aaahhh" I have ever imagined. The sinister grin that adorned my face was almost impossible to suppress. It's not every day such an opportunity is literally dropped into your mailbox.
I immediately informed three of my friends at work exactly what has transpired and our "Little Red Riding Hood" of a plot begins to form. Nothing too minor, nothing too over-the-top, just enough to really make him start wondering about the events that would unfold around him. We decided to strategically move his vehicle to different locations on the property at work. It's a fairly large complex so he wouldn't be able to simply walk out the door and see it just a few spots down from where he originally left it. We will also do this at various times: some when all of us are present, some when one or more of us is out of the office, to throw him off the trail leading to any one particular suspect. The frequency in which we move it would also vary greatly in order to add confusion.
The following Monday, I arrived around the same time as our victim friend. I pulled out the key fob and smiled widely as I hit the panic button. My mile-wide smile transformed to a frown. Nothing. No lights, no horn, nothing. I threw the fob into my glove box assuming the battery is dead. I was too lazy to get a battery for it, so the key would be my saving grace from then moving forward.
When we first began moving his truck, he was light-hearted about it. He typically left his keys hanging on a hook at his desk, so he chalked it up to someone grabbing his keys when he wasn't looking. "Ha. Funny. Shame on me for leaving them hanging up there," he dismissed a much larger conspiracy plot against him. The look of utter shock and disbelief came around the third or fourth time we moved it. His face was almost white. "My keys have been in my pocket ALL day," the real confusion had officially begun. My joy was difficult to contain.
Unfortunately, I'm known for being one the few office pranksters, so he immediately turned to me for answers. I put on my poker face and did my best to act shocked about the whole situation. Thankfully, it was enough to stop his inquisition, but nowhere near good enough to dissuade his suspicions entirely. He's not stupid by any means; he knew I was involved. At that point, however, it didn't really matter, because I still held the key in my possession and, other than safeguarding his personal keys, there's literally nothing he could do but sit by and become more confused as to how exactly this was being done.
He came up with a few far-fetched theories. He assumed at one point that someone was hot wiring the truck to move it. That severely narrowed down the suspects to me alone since I'm the "car guy," even though the closest I've ever come to starting a car without a key was due to a faulty ignition switch that could be turned with a screwdriver. His next theory was that someone must have made a copy of the key one day when he wasn't paying attention. Again, not impossible, but the fact that nowhere near that amount of effort was utilized made it much more satisfying.
We kept moving the truck. He still had no answers. He had a list of suspects, an entirely accurate list to his credit, but he's still not one hundred percent certain as to how we were pulling it off. On any given day, he would walk to the parking lot ready for his journey home only to be postponed by a minor game of "find my car." After a few months, he seemed to really give up caring if it were moved and would only occasionally ask me how. Defeat. I could see it on his face. And of course he would never get an answer. This pattern continued for months.
Around nine months into the prank, his truck developed a substantial oil leak, so he took it to the shop to have it repaired. He'd been strongly considering upgrading to a newer model for a while. This obviously endangered our ongoing shenanigans, but all good things must come to an end. He decided that once it's repaired, he would trade it in. It's repaired, he picked it up, and literally on the way to the dealership, the shop's faulty solution for the oil leak failed and the vast majority of the oil is dumped onto the street. The engine seized, the truck is dead. The shop offered to purchase it from him for a price close to trade value, though not quite the amount he wanted. He was feeling pretty terrible about the whole scenario with the shop since he had his heart set on this new vehicle.
To offer my condolences and try to bring a little joy to his day, I decided to officially end the prank. "Since the shop didn't give you what you wanted for the truck, I definitely wouldn't give them the spare key or key fob I have to your truck." Confusion set in for a moment, but I could see the wheels turning in his mind. I reminded him about the mysterious key and fob, because I had actually mentioned it to him when it was initially delivered to me, but neither of us put it together then.
His confusion broke with a smile. "You evil genius; I'm not even mad."
CAR_IS_MI
> KB Garage
11/12/2014 at 15:55 |
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We used to do the same thing with a friends Toyota back in the day, except his ignition was broken so you could start it with basically any long flat object. Screwdrivers, butter knives, other cars keys... So it was never really a mystery about "how" to him, just more of a "Seriously! C'mon guys."
jkm7680
> KB Garage
11/12/2014 at 15:56 |
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Hahahahaha, That is gold.
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KB Garage
> CAR_IS_MI
11/12/2014 at 15:59 |
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That's still great. I must be immature; it was funny every. single. time.
JKER
> KB Garage
11/13/2014 at 01:39 |
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I did this to one of my roommates in college. He was pretty absent-minded and when he first bought his Ford Mustang, I simply stole the spare key. I'm not sure he even realized that he ever had a spare key haha. Every once in awhile I would move his car to a different parking lot just to mess with him. Good times.