Dormitory Pranks

In the late 70's, I attended law school at SUNY Buffalo and lived in the dormitories on the Amherst campus for most of the three years I was there. One term I lived on the Main Street campus but found it irritating to have to commute back and forth by bus when I could just as easily live right on the same campus as the school.

We played some strange practical jokes on each other. Once, we filled a condom halfway with Jergens lotion and hung it on someone's door. There was so much fluid in it that the prankee opened the door, spotted the condom, and enquired of the jokesters, "What did you do, take up a collection?"

Once I was taking a shower and my roommate stole my clothes out of the bathroom, locked them up in our room, and took a walk with her boyfriend. So there I was in the shower, dripping wet, stark naked, and no clothing. I wasn't going to wait around for her to come back and give me my keys, so that I could dash across the hall and hope no one saw me.

I took the shower curtain off its hooks, wrapped it around me (clinging to my wet body in interesting places) and dripped my way down the hall, knocking on doors. I knocked on all the women's doors first but naturally, no one answered. So I had no choice but to knock on the first men's door I came to.

The fellow who opened the door, Barry something, stood there with his lower jaw on his chest while I nonchalantly explained that someone had taken my clothes, and asked if he had a bathrobe I could borrow. He muttered, "Yeah, sure," handed me a terrycloth bathrobe, and I thanked him and sloshed off. As soon as he shut the door I heard him and his friends exploding with mirth. It was embarrassing but at least with the bathrobe I could dry off and wait for my roommate to come back and let me into the room. After that, I took the keys with me and put them on the far side of the tub when I got into the shower. That way, at worst she could snitch my clothes, but she couldn't lock me out of the room!