Non-Lethal Booby Traps

When I was growing up, my parents were what most people would consider conservative Christians. But I found that Christians can have a lot of fun without drugs, alcohol, night clubs, partying, etc. My dad, who was a serious and stoic person at church and at work, had quite a mischievous streak. When someone has a talent for invention and improvisation combined with a mischievous streak, a lot of things can happen.

When I was about 16, we had just finished building our house in Nebraska. Dad bought an old 3-story barn, tore it down, and built the house from the lumber (with a little help from some friends and family). My younger brother Brad was about 8 years old, and he collaborated with Dad in arranging some surprises around the house.

I walked into my bedroom one night and suddenly faced a dark, hairy creature swooping down at me of the ceiling. I hadn't had a chance to turn the light on and coming out of the dark, it was definitely a surprise! Dad and Brad had used fishing line and thumb tacks to rig a stuffed monkey to swing down in my face when the door opened.

My middle brother Gregg got a similar shock when he entered his room late one evening. His stereo suddenly started blasting at full volume, while at the same time a large rubber band shot at him. Again, fishing line and tacks were used. The over-sized rubber band was launched from a broom handle. The fact that these little stunts actually worked is amazing in itself!

The bathroom got similar treatment. Dad used surgical tubing and a baby enema bulb to rig the toilet so that it squirted us boys back when we lifted the lid to go pee. Nothing like a toilet that sprays back!

I remember we also had a vibrating massage pillow that we placed inconspicuously on the couch. Visitors would lean against it, activate the vibration, then rocket from the couch as if it wanted to eat them for lunch!

Then there were the "pull firecrackers" with strings coming out either end. Those got a lot of use on doorknobs when one of us would enter a room and get surprised with a BANG! and a flash. Now that I look back it reminds me of the Pink Panther movies with Peter Sellers. Inspector Cluseau would go home and never know where Kato could pop out and attack him. But it was great fun for the person who devised the trap and the "trapee".

When I got into high school I had a wicked little booby trap of my own. At the boarding academy I attended my junior year, many of us students ate at Taco Bell because it was cheap (75 cents would buy a bean burrito). I accumulated some hot sauce packages that I had not used. A friend of mine poked a straw into one, dropped it into his cup, and replaced the plastic lid. "Hey Brian!" He called to passing buddy, "I'm too full to finish my Mountain Dew. Ya want it?" Brian eagerly took the cup and sucked on the straw - he was rewarded with a mouth full of hot sauce! We all just about died laughing.

I found that hot sauce packets had certain weak points. They would never break or split at the seams. But I found that a packet folded in half, if squashed, would consistently bust through the thin plastic along the fold, spraying sauce in one direction. This gave me an idea. One evening I went into the bathroom and folded two fire sauce packages, placing them carefully under the pads of a toilet seat so that the folds faced inward toward the middle of the bowl.

The door of the bathroom had just closed behind me when I heard some guy scream and start yelling. I ran back the shoved open the door. All I saw was a trail of shirt, pants, underwear, and socks from the stall door to the shower! The guy in the shower was still yelling. I couldn't help remembering how the fire sauce felt on my lips and imagining how it must feel on other sensitive parts of the body.

Another time, a female accomplice planted packages in a women's restroom. My friend who worked in the maintenance department went in the next day to fix something in the bathroom. He told me that one of the packets had exploded with such force that the sauce shot under the stall door and hit the wall near the floor on other side of the room!

Mostly, school was a boring, never-ending circle of work, study, sleep. But these little pranks broke up the monotony.