How It All Started

Sorry about the lack of a post over the past week. Crazy week. But I'm back, and better than ever.

I wanted to answer a couple of e-mails to start. The first one came from Nikki in Alabama, and she asked me how I got my start as a prankster. My parents tell me I was always a big prankster as a kid. Nothing major, though.

The first big one I remember came when I was 13 or so, when the McDonald's Monopoly game was really popular. My friend "Fred" was trying to collect them all. I don't remember all the details about the game and am too lazy to look them up, but I think you won $1 million if you had Boardwalk and Park Place. Park Place was the common one. You'd get it like every 10 meals or so. Boardwalk was obviously extremely rare.

So Fred and I were talking on the phone one night and he mentioned that he had gotten Park Place that night. Thinking quickly, I said, "Wait, don't you mean Boardwalk?" and he said no, he had it in front of him; it was definitely Park Place. And he knows the game and Boardwalk is definitely the rare one.

I told him that I had gotten McDonald's at lunch that day and had gotten Boardwalk. He told me it was impossible and I must have been mistaken. I told him, "No, I remember because I suddenly got that awful Bette Midler song stuck in my head. You know, 'Under the boardwalk, down by the seahehehe yeah...'" I've always been a really good liar. Add mega details and the lie becomes believable.

So now Fred is freaking out, telling me we could combine them and get a million bucks. But I'm a prick, and I ask him why I'd do that. He's confused, so I explain, "Why would I split the million with you, when I can just go out to McDonald's and spend $50 and pretty much ensure that I'd get Park Place? It's not like you can do the same and get Boardwalk. Right?"

After an argument, Fred was so pissed that he hung up on me and didn't talk to me for six weeks. I finally went crawling back to him and told him I'd been joking and never had Boardwalk. He was still pissed, but eventually forgave me. We're still close friends.

But I didn't like upsetting my best friend, and that was the beginning of my "moral clause" in pranks. Don't hurt anyone.

Still learning, though, I hurt another close friend in high school. My friend "Brian" was madly in love with this girl in our school. She was the hottest girl in the school and Brian... well, Brian wasn't in her league.

Brian was trying to figure out how to get her attention for the longest time. I got pretty tired of it, so one day I told him that she had mentioned in class that she loved emo guys. Emo is the opposite of Brian. Brian is blonde, blue eyes, preppie. But not anymore.

The next day Bryan shows up with black hair in his eyes, eyeliner, and black clothes. Everyone laughed at him, including the girl he was trying to impress. Oops. Strike 2. I haven't done anything like it since. That one hurt him a lot, which hurt me. I just didn't really expect him to do it.

The second e-mail I received was about the book I mentioned weeks back about me, Max Carter. My buddy Mike was just telling me that it's almost ready. He should let me know this week or next that it's just six weeks away. He gets word at that point and he gets a copy of it to make sure it looks right, etc. Then it's out. And the crowd goes wild!

More details at that point.