Issue date: 4/1/05 Section: Aggielife

Ivan Flores - The Battalion

April Fools' Day isn't a holiday revered for gift giving, nor does anyone get off work or school. However, unlike Thanksgiving meals of watching Grandma mash her yams with her gums, April Fools' Day generally manifests stories that are worth remembering, and more importantly, telling.

Of course, practical jokes are not limited to one day in April. Necessity is the mother of invention, and in certain cases, destruction. Joshua McCarroll, a senior sociology major, was one student blessed with that necessity. Specifically, he and his fellow hall-mates had too much laundry detergent at the end of a semester.

"I was in my dorm, minding my own business, and all of a sudden there was a banging at my door," McCarroll said. "My friends said, 'Joshua, get all of your detergents and come with us!' I packed up my 48-load Tide box, Clorox bleach, Clorox bleach with colors, fabric softener and Shout ... yes, Shout, and headed out the door. We dumped all of the detergents into the fountain outside of Cain, right into some filtering system, and into the pool of water itself. Then we went back for more. Rinse, lather, repeat, you know?."

After the deed was done, McCarroll returned to his dorm, and woke the next morning to a magnificent sight.

"It appeared to be Christmas in April," he said. "Everything was white."

It was after the "snow" melted that McCarroll realized the error of his ways. All of the grass had died around Cain Hall.

Brad Wilcox, a junior computer science major, lives in Hart Residence Hall and uses his buddy Roy to guard his door at night. Roy is a stuffed and mounted coyote.

"Our suite mate's fiancé was deathly afraid of dogs, so when she opened the door to make use of the facilities she screamed bloody murder," Wilcox said. "Another time, we once put Roy in the hallway and called the on-duty RA to report an animal in the dorm. He was pretty shocked, to say the least. Afterwards, he made sure the rest of my hall's staff dropped by to 'see something.'

Wilcox's coyote antics did not end there.

"Probably the best time was over Christmas break, when the maintenance crews were in our dorm," he said. "The first person to go in to our room jumped backward so violently that he tumbled to the floor along with the hallway trash can. Then he decided it would be funny to see somebody else's reaction. My RA said he could hear him cursing and yelling for hours."

The endless struggle for the perfect prank is not bound by age. Johny Garner, a speech communications graduate assistant, witnessed a far more elaborate and well-planned execution of a prank designed by five students determined to dupe two of their professors.

Continued...

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