By Uhanthaen Ravilojan
April Fool’s Day is approaching—but instead of planning shenanigans, you’re stuck at home watching Bon Appetit videos on YouTube, wishing you were friends with Claire Saffitz. Don’t let a pandemic prevent your pranks! You can still pull gags on those who deserve it most: like the professor who gave you a bad mark. Here’s how you can engage in April Fool’s festivities (while keeping social distancing in mind):
Whoopee Cushion!
This is a great prank that can still be played while quarantined. Sit on it yourself during a Zoom lecture and treat your peers to the rip of a big fat fart. You should barely be able to hear them giggle over your toot-tooting tush.
Play this prank when your professor takes long pauses while speaking, giving room for a gassy interruption. Maybe someone like Professor Hermann Unger. I took his medieval philosophy class before.
Put pickle juice in their coffee!
Drip a little dilly water into your professor’s cup of espresso through a long straw you snuck through their window. They’ll spit coffee all over their nice cashmere turtleneck sweater—the one they bought during Hudson’s Bay Boxing Day blowout sale—that they put on to look respectable on their student’s screens. Imagine how foolish your professor will feel going from head honcho of the lecture hall to putz who can’t keep liquids in their mouth (just close your mouth and swallow, dummy!)
Play this on someone who needs a good humbling. Maybe Professor Unger. He gave me a B- when I deserved at least a B.
Mail them wacky packages!
Only if you know the professor’s address—Unger lives at 17 Harvest Moon Crescent. Give them goofy gag gifts galore: 15 copies of Rob Lowe’s memoir, giant dildos, a box of termites. While you’re at it, order 30 pizzas to their address and force them to spend their undeserved paychecks. Why should Professor Unger get paid six figures to call my essay about Saint Augustine unclear?
Plant an insecurity deep in their psyche!
At the end of every lecture when Ung—I mean your professor—asks, “Does anybody have any questions or comments?” tell him, “You did such a great job today!” in the warm but patronizing tone you’d use while talking to a six-year old who just performed the Paw Patrol theme song for you on their plastic recorder. On the last day, say “Hey, it’s really inspiring that you got where you are given your…limitations,” while glancing at his large hands.
Then, posing as a philosophy professor from Stanford, publish an article on Medium titled “You’ll never make it as a professional philosopher if you don’t have dainty fragile hands.” Publish RateMyProf reviews for Ernest Broch—his rival in the department—praising his elegant cuticles and fingers so small they can barely hold a piece of chalk. Unger will wonder if his giant hands stunted his career and prevented him from becoming a great Kant scholar like his father. He’ll become debilitated with shame from his oversized man mitts. His professional and personal life will fall apart. He’ll start to wonder if his life has any meaning.
Sabotage their career!
During the 15 years that have passed since Professor Unger gave me a B-, I’ve spied on him from the Taco Bell across the street from his house. The manager has taken a liking to me and has even given me free churros once in a while.
I’ve learned that Unger has spent the past five years writing a book about Scholasticism’s influence on the poetry of Novalis, a breakthrough in the study of German Romanticism.
Discredit his work by “finding” and publishing Novalis’s long lost diaries—which are actually fake diaries forged by yourself—revealing the true intentions of Novalis’s work:
“Oh, how silly it would be if one thought my poetry was influenced by Scholastic thought! All my work is clearly about my lust for my local blacksmith. Hymns to The Night describes how I wish to worship his hairy armpits.”
Unger will feel like he wasted his time on the book and that he was ultimately a mediocre academic.
Steal their identity!
Unger’s Social Insurance Number (SIN) is 738291837, his pin is 48342 and his mother’s maiden name is Schillinger.
Withdraw large sums of money under his name, destroy his credit and cancel his mortgage. His family will desert him and he’ll live alone in a basement apartment eating canned bread and SPAM.
Maybe next time he’ll think twice before giving a student a B-.
v
This is really great
Hermann Unger
This is blasphemy.