“A Tiny Piece Of Masking Tape Over A Coworker’s Mouse Laser”: 35 People Share Genius Yet Harmless Ways To Prank Others
If there’s something we've learned from the holy grail of television, aka The Office (except from everything about life, work, love and so on!), it's that a little trick and a tiny troll here and there do no harm. Hands up, everyone who remembers the prank on Dwight’s tape recorder!
Real life is no exception. To make our mundane reality a little more adventurous and somewhat hilarious, people come up with the most ingenious little ways to mess with others. “What are some harmless ways to [mess] with people?” someone asked on Ask Reddit, and oh boy, Pandora's box was opened.
Read on below for the best responses, and please, don’t try this at home! Or try at your own risk, which should be not only minimal, but basically nonexistent.
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My grandpa does this thing where he stops in the busy street and starts staring into the sky as if he’s seen something amazing. It doesn’t take long for other people to stop and stare too, once he’s reaches critical mass he quietly slips away chuckling to himself.
Edit, he’s in his 90’s now but when he was a teenager he was a bit of a young tearaway and had a pet monkey, which is weird considering this was the UK.
Edit 2: holy c**p this blew up overnight. And on my cake day too!
Buy a set of “Voice Activated” or “Motion Activated” stickers from Amazon, and the possibilities are endless
Every other week or so I'd change which side my coworker's drill's belt clip was on, 2 screws and 30 seconds for a maddening payout. Idk if he ever caught on, as he sadly passed away last year.
I got a huge kick out of doing it though. Might bring that one back as most of us share the same brand of drill.
He got a great one on me. Every day or two he'd hide a Magic the Gathering card in my toolbox, never the same spot twice. Genuinely made me mad when I'd pick something up only to see another card hidden beneath. Eventually I had enough cards to completely cover his locker door inner and outer, he never took them off. Even cut out cards to fit the vents on the locker. I spent a good hour or two on my day off making it. Proud of that one.
RIP Chris. Pranks haven't been the same since you left. Your locker still remains covered in Magic cards and nobody has questioned it to this day.
Senior prank at my high school a few years ago, they let 3 chickens lose: numbered 1, 2, and 4.
School took forever looking for the 3rd chicken
Occasionally I get Christmas cards sent to my address meant for the previous homeowners, wrong address etc. I take these cards and mail them to my friends and family with their correct names and addresses etc and with their return address. I can imagine them sitting around their table scratching their heads wondering who the hell the O’Reilly family is, in a family picture all dressed up in their Christmas garb sending them a Christmas card. A couple times I than learned that the next year out of courtesy, my relatives would then send the unknown family a Christmas card from them, and than that family is like who the hell are these people.
I put a tiny piece of masking tape over my co-worker’s mouse laser on April fool’s day one year, wrote “April fool’s” on it. He troubleshot every single thing except examining the mouse. He eventually called IT who simply turned the mouse over and pointed it out to him.
My grandpa glued a quarter to his driveway near the sidewalk and sits in his living room and watches people try to pick it up. I didn't know this till I found a quarter in the driveway one time.
When in an elavator with strangers (or just walking thru a lobby) casually look down and say "oh wow they really did a good job getting the blood out".
When someone knocks on the public washroom door you are in respond with come in!
I do this every so often because it's kind of a game to me to see how long I can keep it up till the person catches on.
I repeat the last word the person says in question form.
Example:
"Hey, me and Jenny are headed to Jim's Pizza Hut."
"Jim's Pizza Hut?"
"Yeah, you know the one on F street."
"F Street?"
Over there near the harbor with the big carousel."
"Carousel?"
"Yeah, you know the one you went with me and Jane."
"Jane?"
"My girlfriend."
"Girlfriend?"
"Ok, what the f**k is wrong with you?"
Once they call you out and have caught on the game ends. I've carried on a conversation over an hour once doing this. It's really awesome when the person you are doing it to has gone through this a few times with you.
My daughter has gotten me a few times herself and she'll laugh on and off for the day at my expense. Her husband has called me an a*s for teaching this to her a few times too.
My son can make dolphin sounds to perfection. We were on a dolphin excursion and he would randomly do the sounds. People kept looking over the sides to see the dolphins. He also confused the operator because he kept looking around for dolphins. One of our best family vacation memories.
When I order coffee and they ask for the name I say “Green. Like the sky.”
My personal favorite is: Sit down on a park bench next to someone. Slide a manila enevlope with a picture of a random person from the net to them and say, "It has to be done by Friday and it has to look like an accident." Then get up and walk away quickly.
When you shake someone's hand, move yours left to right. As they do the traditional up and down, a hilarious circle ensues.
The child in me is laughing so hard I'm crying right now. These are fantastic!!
Edit: For PSA
Hide something around their house. My weapon of choice was tiny rubber ducks.
Open a drawer? Duck.
I need a spoon. Duck.
Lovely picture of their wedding with a nice frame? Duck on top.
Charging box? Duck.
Bubble bath? Duck.
Seldom used shoes? Duck.
Winter coat pocket they won't use for months? Duck.
Its ducking delightful how much mileage you can get out of tiny ducks.
PSA: Be extremely cautious in the case of households containing animals and small children. Both like putting little things in their mouths and other orifices so might be best to avoid Ducking these individuals/ensuring things are definitely out of reach.
I think this is the first ever time I've seen someone write ducking and actually intend to type ducking
When you're talking to someone, just keep handing them random items. They'll just keep taking them without realizing it.
This one is harmless but occasionally can drive someone mad.
My mom has a bunch of framed family photos hangin on a wall. One day I was visiting I took them all down and scanned them with a little hand scanner. I photoshoped small changes on them, removed some people from some photos, added a couple of celebrities in the background, etc, print them out and replaced them a few days later.
I can't forget her face when she realized it was me and she was not losing it.
My friend was logged into his twitter on my tablet so I kept changing his profile picture to a banana.. he thought someone hacked him and tweeted about it.. I replied to the tweet using his profile.. it got so bad he was arguing with himself on twitter.
When I was a corrections officer we had a guy who worked with us who was kind of a d**k to everyone, and he was computer illiterate. We took a screenshot of his desktop and moved all of his icons off of it so it looked legit but nothing worked. It took him an hour before he finally called IT and they figured it out pretty quickly. He wouldn’t talk to any of us for about a week.
You need to take this to the next level. Take the screen shot. Load it in paintbrush. Rotate the image 180deg. Set it as the desktop wallpaper. Next go into your screen settings and rotate the display 180deg. THEN hide the icons and toolbar. The mouse controls will be flipped too. Yes I am 100% evil.
Whenever I visit my extended family across the country, I bring a bag full of random remotes that I don’t use anymore. Just random remotes that go to old dvrs or anything really. Just hide them around their house, they only recently caught on.
If I know someone is walking a little ways behind me and I turn a corner with nobody else around I like to run 10-20 steps to widen the gap and then laugh to myself thinking that the person behind me will be confused.
I doubt anyone ever notices but I get a kick out of it every time.
At work: give them a "While You Were Out" note saying a "Mr. Fox" called for them and write on the note the number for your local zoo.
I was talking with a supervisor and I happened to have like 4 hard boiled eggs in my jacket pocket for lunch. So while talking with stuff, I took out an egg, cracked and shelled it and ate it. The conversation kept going so I did it again but I could see he was growing quizzical. I waited a few more minutes, pulled out another and ate that too. By then I could tell he was like WTF. The conversation was wrapping up so I pulled the last one out and he stopped mid conversation and asked me, “how many f$cking eggs do you have?”
I just shrugged, shelled, and then ate, the last egg.
Reassure people there's nothing wrong with the item they are about to use.
Right before they sit down: "there's nothing wrong with that chair"
When driving I like to wave at random people as if I knew them. Hilarious to see instant confusion on their faces
When my husband pours his coffee into his mug and turns around to get milk out of the refrigerator, I pour his coffee back into the coffee pot or into my mug. I cackle as I run out of the room.
A lady in my office wouldn’t stop talking about gas lighting and people who were gaslighting. So we told her it was actually called “gaslamping” and she has the term wrong. Took a bit of convincing but she started using that term and telling everyone else they were wrong too. A week later we changed it back to gaslighting.
Our neighbour has chickens. About once a week or so we would sneak over and put extra eggs in the lay box, so it looked like the chickens had been on a laying spree. So fun chatting with them, trying to work out why sometimes the chickens were super producers and sometimes not. It ended when we put a chocolate egg in there, they worked it out then 😄😄
Say "I don't want to sound racist, but" and then say something completely positive yet irrelevant.
"I don't want to sound racist, but the sun looks lovely on those flowers".
Look at their forehead, ear, or chin during the entire conversation.
Call in sick to a place you don't work.
At the deli, ask for the most human tasting meat they have.
Go to the grocery store and ask for Gomber. "You know, it's kind of red, and you put it on mayo sandwiches."
Ask if they like your perfume and get them to smell your neck, wrist, ankle, or other body part. Don't actually be wearing any perfume.
If two neighbors have opposite political signs during an election, swap them
The movie theater in my town is usually mostly empty. There's been a couple of times when I've come in to get seated and there's literally only one other person in my auditorium.
There's an evil part of me that wants to just go sit right next to them. Not illegal, but it should be.
I once had this happen in an old style local town cinema ... It was an old guy looking for company and to share his snacks ... Turns out he used to visit every week with his wife and when she died he still wanted to visit, but felt sad on his own. Lovely guy.
Some guy on Quora had this genius idea. Grab a highlighter, and randomly highlight one name on a public list (attendance, lunch money, extracurricular classes, whatever). You won't get to see it, but some poor fellow will silently lose their mind trying to figure out why their name is highlighted.
Shout at friends from far away (like at a concert), but gibberish. When they say, "WHAT???" Slowly, phonetically, repeat the gibberish. See how many times they ask, "WHAT???" Before either just agreeing or if you get bored, just randomly go, "OKAY!" liked you agreed to something.
"HEY ROY!"
"YEAH?"
"HAVE YOU RODDY THE SCAN BAKE ON TRIANGLE??"
"WHAT??"
"HAVE YOU. ROD-DY. THE. SCAN. BAKE. ON. TRI-HANG-GULL??"
"... WHAT??"
"THE SCAN? BAKE AT ALL? YES/NO??"
"... WHAT?"
"OKAY! I WILL, THANKS!!"
"..."
I'm a huge fan of just handing somebody something without any explanation and walking away.
When I buy expensive scotch, I’ll mention to the cashier how I bet this will taste amazing when I mix it with Pepsi.
After giving a compliment, say “no offense” and watch them struggle to find the non-existent insult.
Say "High five" to someone, but don't put your hand up.
Hold a door open when they're just a little bit too far away, most people will do a funny little waddle run
I love mistakingly pronounceling words mid sentence only to pronounce them correctly moments later
Yes, you are very clever and funny. In Australia we call that a 'head duck' (but with an F).
My favorite thing to do at my coffee shop job is wait until we have a line, tell the first few customers to "have a good day" loudly enough for the rest of the line to hear, and then tell exactly one customer "enjoy your drink" instead. 90% of the time they hit me with a "you too" and I just smile and nod, content in the knowledge that they'll cringe about that for the rest of the day.
Go and buy a 50Lb bag of wild bird seed and spread it over the entire front yard of someone you love. The birds will thank you and you will enjoy wonderful wild flowers next spring it's called Birdseeding. It's the new TP'ing🤓
You can do the same at someone's car, but they will not be thankful for all the bird c**p...
When I was in HS, I carefully watched my buddy open his gym locker for a week so I could memorize his code. The day finally came when I wanted to f**k with him. So I opened his locker, took all his s**t out and left a note that said "go to locker 55". When he got to locker 55 it was another note that said "now go to locker 100". This went on a few times then he finally got to his stuff at the end. It was a good prank and we all had a good laugh about it.
I have a secondary remote that my kids don’t know about. Sometimes I’ll stand out of site and turn up the volume or hit back when they select something to watch. It’s pretty funny.
I have a Roku remote on my phone and do it to my kid all the time. Also have one for her tv in her room and push random buttons
Mail someone a red golf ball every week for a while. Then mail them a green golf ball and stop.
Okay… but what about just regular golf balls? I live just just past a golf course and they have pretty shotty hits and my dad always finds golf balls when taken the dog for a walk. Our dog will pick them up and chew them. And my year 6 teacher used to do golf at that golf course and would find golf balls broken in half and chewed ones and put them in the treasure chest! It was like a prize box but fully a silly things. Like socks and broken Christmas baubles
Walk up to a couple of your co-workers. Say,
“I just want to tell you both good luck. We’re all counting on you. “
Walk away.
One thing I do is when someone asks directions, I say something like, "If you take a left out of the parking lot, and go down to the light, then turn right, you'll be going the wrong direction. It's actually (give correct directions)."
Say: "nevermind" when someone interrupts you. It will make them more curious about what you wanted to say. Works really well with my siblings.
I always give people the head shake of disappointment just to f**k with them, especially at red lights
I give the HSOD to people who deserve it in traffic and it’s so satisfying sometimes. Pedestrians trying to cross a busy highway with a baby in a stroller, without using a crosswalk or looking both ways cause they assume traffic will see them and stop for them? (Stupidly common where I live) Tsk, tsk, disappointed head shake, enjoy your deathwish.
When having a conversation during a meal, specifically only ask questions to people that are chewing.
ETA: I was never a server, but had this taught to me by a dear friend of mine years ago when we used to eat in a public cafeteria and mess with people we just met.
While going up the chairlift at a ski resort my friend and I would call out to someone under the chairlift, call them a random name and yell "WE'LL WAIT FOR YOU AT THE TOP!" usually the person would spend time trying to explain to us they weren't who we thought they were. We'd act like we couldn't hear them and insist we'd wait for them at the top.
I use to hum an off pitch note in orchestra rehearsals while the violins were getting their tuning note.
Keep correcting them on the pronunciation of your name, even when they are saying it correctly every time.
When they ask what your favourite song or band is, tell them you don't like music. When they ask why say because there are no pictures like movies and tv shows.
When someone asks for the time:
"Excuse me, do you know what time it is?"
"Yes."
"Yes what?"
"Yes sir!"
Put a sticky note on their car that says “sorry I hit your car” and they’ll go crazy looking for nonexistent damage
My brother in law came back to a note on his car. Heart dropping, he picked it up and read it. It said 'Your car is a bit shlt mate'.
This one doubles as an LPT: When you're in a place where you can't walk away (such as a bus stop) and someone approaches you asking for money, smile brightly and say, "Oh, no thank you!" in the same tone of voice you would if a friendly person offered you a piece of cake. It will confuse the person, and they will likely leave you alone. If they ask again, repeat the sentence again. "Oh, no thanks, I'm good!" Smile even more brightly.
If you ever have a moment with their computer or cellphone use their search engine to look for a bunch of non-sense products and then erase the search history. The algoritm will think they have a interest in said products and put a bunch of adds recomending them for the next few days.
I use this on my own devices to confuse the search algorithms. There's realistically no way to stop them from tracking me, so I just send as much random data as possible to confuse the bots. Want to send me targeted ads? Have fun deciding what to sell a person interested in Marie Antoinette's wig powder, Tibetan throat singing, deep sea fungus, base-eight number theory, and the type of paint used on the hull of the ISS.
For old remote controlled TVs, Schedule On or Off TV for a random time and see the freak-outs
Did this to my dad. Never fixed it. Still bothers him. He was abusive to me during childhood. Deserves at least TV inconvenience. 😂
Sometimes when you do like onlike quizzes they'll ask for an email to send the results too. I like to put random people that I know instead
This is not necessarily as harmless as OP seems to think. Why does a site "need" your email? To spam you - in this case your acquaintance, to sell their data to others, to expose them to phishing attempts, to violate their privacy.
Go out somewhere on a rainy day, like a shop or a restaurant. If it has an umbrella stand, take one of the paper tissues that they provide you and tear it up into little pieces. Sprinkle these into a certain umbrella, and if you are lucky, you may get to see someone go out of the restaurant and open up their umbrella to find a personal, paper snow storm.
For old remote controlled TVs, Schedule On or Off TV for a random time and see the freak-outs
Guys, no downvotes. Accidentally copied. It's the same OP.
I once got my wife a card that said "i hope you get better soon". She said "I'm not sick though" and I said "I know. I just thought you could be better."
Ask a question and when they are a few words into answering ask "huh?"
Retired teacher, I'd simply say I'm not repeating. Listen next time, or ask someone else. Then turn away and go back to what I was doing. Loved the crestfallen look especially if they were messing with me.
If you meet them in a party tell them that no matter what everyone else says you are glad they came.
Get their consent, preferably over dinner and a movie.
The original title on Reddit was 'Harmless ways to f**k with people'. I think they thought it was 'Harmless ways to f**k people'.
For people who like to take up two parking spaces, leave a note that says "Sorry, but you can barely see it"
You're not just pranking, you're doing the Lord's work.
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I did one at my workplace, someone had brought in a big tub of Celebrations chocolates. Once the tub was empty, I stuck a post-it note on it that read: "Do not open unless you are willing to kill it". The tub just sat there for about a month, no-one would go near it.
This would drive me nuts. I would be caught between wanting to open it and kill it, or watching how long people would avoid it. I'm the office superhero for trap and release or killing various critters.
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I loathe practical jokes, because most of the time they are humiliating and mean spirited. These are what practical jokes should be. The chicken one is particularly hilarious 😂
Agree, there were still some on this list that I found a bit mean, but the really harmless ones made me smile
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For people who like to take up two parking spaces, leave a note that says "Sorry, but you can barely see it"
You're not just pranking, you're doing the Lord's work.
Load More Replies... I did one at my workplace, someone had brought in a big tub of Celebrations chocolates. Once the tub was empty, I stuck a post-it note on it that read: "Do not open unless you are willing to kill it". The tub just sat there for about a month, no-one would go near it.
This would drive me nuts. I would be caught between wanting to open it and kill it, or watching how long people would avoid it. I'm the office superhero for trap and release or killing various critters.
Load More Replies... I loathe practical jokes, because most of the time they are humiliating and mean spirited. These are what practical jokes should be. The chicken one is particularly hilarious 😂
Agree, there were still some on this list that I found a bit mean, but the really harmless ones made me smile
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