Animal House Pranks

There was a movie
That came out
A number of years ago
Titled “Animal House”
That movie was probably
A fairly accurate depiction
What it was like
My Freshman Year
At Michigan State University.
I was assigned to Shaw Hall,
Then the largest all male
Dormitory in the world,
Where I was introduced
To college pranks
As a form of
Intramural competition.
There were a lot of
Talented pranksters
Among the 3000 guys
Living in that dorm.
It was room against room
And floor against floor
In competition
To “outprank” each other.
There were plenty lesser stunts,
Not quite state of the art,
Like putting shoe polish
One the phone receivers
Or “cellophaning” the toilets
Late at night
To catch them
When they least expect it.
We learned the art
Of wedging a door shut
By jamming objects like
Pencils or pennies
Between the door and the frame.
One of the dirtiest tricks of all
Happened when someone
With a deep understanding of fowl,
And the mess they tend to create,
Led a bevy hungry ducks
One winter day,
One cracker at a time,
Up three flights of stairs
And left them in someone’s room.
Winter was open prank season.
One set of roommates returned
From the Christmas break
Only to find their window left open
And their entire room
Embedded in three inches
Of frozen Jell-O.
One trick was a feat
Of pure engineering mastery,
And after all,
Engineering was what
I was in school to learn.
A mattress was tied to a rope
And hung out a window
While the other end of the rope
Was tied to the handle of the door.
Then the hinges were removed
And the door was locked
Ever so carefully.
When the roommate returned
With date in tow,
And opened the door,
It flew across the room
Crashing into the wall
With a horrendous noise
That reverberated through the halls
Ending any possible secrecy
To their midnight rendezvous.
The following year
Women were integrating into the dorm
Taming the place down,
And I was fortunately left
With little to do but study.