If you were to ask Steve what his favourite day of the year is, he would without a doubt say April Fool’s Day. Steve has a colourful history of pulling off elaborate pranks, including the time the he drilled tiny holes in Tic-Tac candies, filled them with fish paste, and went around handing them out at school. While I wasn’t around for that one, I was lucky enough to have been chosen as Steve’s pranking assistant during uni. Steve was the mastermind behind everything, and I just helped him execute. Here are some of my favourites: 

1. We All Poop Together

The washrooms in Leonard Hall at Queen’s had three side-by-side toilet stalls, separated by two metal dividers. Steve and I managed to remove the dividers, so anybody that opened one of the stalls would be surprised to find a large open communal pooping area! We left it that way for 24 hours, so who knows how many great poop-conversations we sparked that day. 

2. WTF is in My Room?! 

If you don’t know Mike Woods, he’s a very tall and very wonderful human. But his tallness is what Steve was targeting for this prank. He purchased a bunch of wooden planks, and while Mike was out of the house, we installed a large, star-shaped wooden structure (see picture) in the middle of Mike’s cramped bedroom — effectively making it very difficult for the 6’7 Mike to move around, or really do anything useful, in his bedroom. 

3. Is it Just Me, or is it Warm In Here?

Steve was also good at playing the long con. His roommate in first year was Jeff Jackson, whose internal temperature generally ran hot. So to make him even hotter, Steve installed an electric blanket under Jeff’s bedsheets. Every night for over a week, Steve would wait until Jeff had fallen asleep and then turn on the electric blanket to a progressively higher setting. Jeff would wake up sweating and confused about why he was so hot! 

4. The Handcuff Prank 

Steve and I walked down Princess Street to the Army Surplus store where we found a pair of authentic army-grade handcuffs. We decided that my best friend and roommate Dave Cook would be our target. After a long night of shenanigans we lurked in the dark after Dave had fallen asleep and managed to handcuff him to his metal bed frame. I then went to sleep on the floor of Steve’s room to escape any consequences that would inevitably come my way. I awoke to a phone call from a fairly disgruntled Dave, who threatened to “stab my computer” which was apparently still within his stabbable range. Fearing the death of my laptop, I immediately went to uncuff him. 

5. Jacksonism

The pinnacle of Steve’s pranking genius was Jacksonism. Believing that Jeff Jackson’s relaxed and borderline apathetic outlook on life was something to be emulated, Steve created a movement called Jacksonism that would embody these principles. He created an elaborate video involving interviews with Jeff’s friends and ordered dozens of “Convert to Jacksonism” t-shirts. The grand reveal was on April Fool’s Day in which everyone wore their Jacksonism shirts around campus and Jeff would randomly run into people wearing shirts bearing his own face! 

Jacksonism video link: vimeo.com/14697123