Saturday, March 21, 2009

Prank of the year

Three states, road rage, wayward Chinese students and a 'cast'of thousands... some of the key ingredients in what The Perth Files is calling the Prank of the Year.

It all started about two years ago, give or take 12 months, when a stockbroking mate in Melbourne, Brendan, decided it would be a good idea to CC a random person from the blogosphere into our email conversations. Keep in mind, these were not conversations of the intellectual kind, they would more easily fit into the 'talking shit' category.

And so, along came Dom. Dom was a good sport and played along with Bren's funny ways, until a degree of 'stalking' entered his tone and all of a sudden, our 'third leg' interwebs buddy in Brisbane was threatening legal action.

Of course, I took all this with a shovel full of salt, until 'solicitors' became involved and I started to wonder if indeed it had all gone pear shaped and Brendo and I would be facing a charge of cyber stalking.

Of course, it was all a prank that Bren had cooked up with Dom's support, but full respec to the man, he held on to that prank like a Rhodesian Ridgeback holds on to the throat of a distressed Shitzu.

Round 1, full points to Brendo.

But that leads us on to this latest round robin of pranking. Dom was planning a trip to Melbourne and we thought what stunt could we pull on a man who can see a prank coming from as far afield as Geelong?

The answer? Tell him that a client's daughter would be visiting Melbourne from Perth and that she was keen to learn all about the world of stockbroking. A young tear-away, nightclub haunting rebellious Chinese student called Jiao Chen.

It was a busy day in the money world when the receptionist paged Brendan to tell him - 'and I hope I pronounce this correctly' - that Jow Chan was at reception.

Full of puff, Brendo handballs a major piece of work to a colleague and makes his way to reception to meet the pretty young Chinese girl that he's seen in so many facebook pictures that were emailed to him by his good friend Cookster.

Of course, who is waiting at reception? Dom, laughing like a drain. Hello Mr Brendan, you very strong man?

Revenge is on Bren's mind and with Dom due to land in Perth in a matter of weeks, he immediately hatches a prank of his own... with the devious Dom adding the master touches.

I get an email saying that Dom has almost run into a 'Car-Voyant' at a set of lights in Brisbane, who does readings of people's number plates. Of course, Brendo's right into it, so I supply my rego as well and two days later, we get our readings... all highly amusing stuff.

Then Dom arrives in Perth, but it's an awkward few days and it looks like we won't be able to catch up, so she spills the beans to me by email. The rego they got out of me was used in a bodgied-up red light infringement notice and it was due to be delivered to my office by D, Dom's other half.

As fate would have it, just that morning Mrs Cookster had been chased in the people mover by a cranked-up meth addict in a red ute who threatened to kill her. Great place Perth. She'd already filed a police report and I had a copy.

This is where Dom and I see potential for a double play...

Of course I email Bren to tell him that it was unfortunate that he chose today of all days to play his little prank, because when D turned up at my reception, waving a note with our rego in my face and acting like Mr Road Rage, I did what came naturally and pushed him down a short flight of stairs.

The result was, a broken wrist and Dom standing in the doorway of my office shouting 'surprise' while a dozen of my colleagues looked on appalled.

Not only did the wrist need a cast, but Dom and D had a fight and decided to travel home separately. D stayed on after his wrist was plastered and we had a drink to patch things up - and brood about the evil Brendo.

Of course Brendo could smell a particularly noxious rat here, but the official police report had him toey and he couldn't dismiss this one out of hand. We had him sweating and he went to ground waiting for us to crack.

But crack we did not, indeed we stuck it out for weeks and waited until Dom's next trip to Melbourne. To drive home our advantage we decided it would be a grand idea if D was to pay Brendo a visit - complete with a plastered arm, signed, sealed and delivered right to his office.

A huge thanks to D and to Dr Ced who combined beatifully to crank the prank meter up to 11 and leave a flummoxed Brendo contemplating where he could possibly go from here. I think the images below capture the closing scenes in all their merry pankster majesty.







2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hahaha! I have to admit the Perth prank and'Car-Voyant'was all my/our (Darren's) hairybrained idea I just pretended it was all Hawes fault just to annoy him more! He gets even funnier when he gets angry! What can I say...I'm a low down dirty double crossing rat'flink'(ask Hawe about the 'flink' story! Pretty funny!)

Hawe wanted to send you to a bro.thel with some two for one voucher deal thingy.I told him that it could end in tears.What if Cooke actually fell'hooker'line and sink-her for it and it landed him in big doo doo doing the do-do!;-)Bit of a far fetched reaction...but I wanted to involve Darren (who you'd never met...)in the next joke to really throw ya!Didn't expect you to be the one throwing him though!;-) Darren also wanted in on the dirty deeds after I'd spent times doubled over in laughter retelling the stories!

But being the good sport that he is Hawe got right into it sending me a copy of a recent red-light running by his wife to bodgey up! It was fun making up the carvoyant readings!
Like Janet said in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels "Fellas, last year I made 3 million dollars, but your 50 thousand was the most fun. Are you ready? Then let's go get 'em.'

Hey maybe we SHOULD do this for da money!:-P You guys really are so much fun to ploy along with!
:-Dom

Anonymous said...

Why am I acting like the victime all of a sudden? 'Coz I am the 'kin victim, that's why. I really thought the massage parlour set of free coupons would get you, John Cooke, but DOL wouldn't have it. The first idea, however, was to send you a sandwich shop voucher for a free lunch...did that get the nod? No. DOL is such a control freak, and she played it beautifully. To all my great prankish ideas, her response was just sort of ho hum...oh well...yeah we could do that but I think we should use Darren while we have him. It had to be HER idea, or the whole thing was off. Naturally, being the gentleman that I am, I yielded.

Now, let me get back to work...Simon, he who sits next to me is the designated next victim. This one is a beaut, but must be planned meticulously. Steve and I have already whetted his appetite, he's hungry for it. He wants it bad. He must have it. What he don't know is that we don't got it.

Standby for updates when Si meets the lie.

Hawey