The Lost Art Of The Practical Joke

When I first started at SWA there were a few characters in the shop who were great at the art of the practical joke. As the years have gone on the majority of those guys have transferred out or quit or have been fired. Those few who remain have been corralled by MGT into toning down the joking and pranks in our ever growing PC (politically correct) world. "Someones feeling may get hurt so it must be a bad thing."

To honor the old days and the guys who knew how to have fun at work I am going to share some of the pranks we used to pull. I can't recount them all because this post would be too long so I will only recount a few now and maybe it will be a recurring post.

The first is an old airline standard: The New Plane Air Sample

To pull this prank all you had to do was find a relatively new AC and some new hire Flight Attendant or Ramper. We would go up to the cabin find the newbie and give them a garbage bag. The would be told that since this was a new plane we needed air samples taken and ask them to go to the aft galley and wave the bag around to fill it up and then quickly tie the bag shut. Then they would go to the back and we would marvel at how seriously they would take their new job. This also works for Rampers and Cargo Bin air samples.

The Mechanic or Supervisor in training prank.

There was a guy who I will call Picard. Picard was one of those guys who was good at thinking up pranks and very good at execution of the prank. Picard would find out who was going to DAL for training and then figure out what hotel and room they were staying in. We all worked graveyard at the time so at around 3am DAL time he would call the room and tell the guy he had to move his rental car because he parked in the wrong area or whatever.
When the guy came back we would ask him about it, and they would all admit that they got up and moved the car or that they were in the elevator before they realized that Picard had got them.

Mice and Rats

We had a mechanic who I will call Prince. Prince was easily scared. When he was frightened he would scream like a girl!! You could sneak up behind him when he was changing a tire and yell BOO and he would jump three feet.
The guys found a dead mouse one day and tied a string around it's neck then taped the string to the inside of an Altoids tin. When you opened the tin the mouse's head would pop up out. This tin was left on the table in the break room and of course people would open the tin and get a surprise. When Prince opened the tin and the mouse popped up he screamed and jumped and the tin went flying across the room.
One of our best capers was when we cornered a killed a huge rat. This thing was the size of a small cat and had huge sharp teeth. We knew Prince was working day shift the next morning so we came up with a scheme. We tied the dead rat to an inboard landing light box with safety wire and tape, leaving about a foot of slack between the box and the rat. Then we positioned the box on the shelf so that it was closest and so the natural choice of anyone who would grab a light. When Prince came in we got in a place where we could see the show. Prince being a smoker was out in front of the shop near the landing light rack. We put out a fake call for a landing light change. Prince said he would get it and grabbed the box. To his surprise a huge rat came jumping off the rack from behind the landing light box! Prince went screaming and jumping out the parts room door. The best part was that he held onto the landing light box and so the rat was swinging after him all the way out the shop!

We had probbies trying to recylce old landing light bulbs (another Picard stunt).
We used to put Dave's Insanity Sauce (a really hot hot sauce) on cookies and popcorn and even in coffee.
Picard was a master at putting tiny holes into the coffee cups and watching people spill all over themselves.
Back in the day before computer orders for uniforms we would change peoples uniform pant size to something like 28 waist 42 length.
We used to tell the probbies that Wed was free coffee day in the terminal for SWA employees, they would go up stairs and show their badge and the coffee shop lady would look at them like fools. We had to stop that when one probbie took orders from everyone and ended up putting over $60 of coffee on his credit card.

All this does is remind me how much has changed at SWA MX in Oakland. These things would never fly these days. Too much babying of grown men. I couldn't imagine scaring someone with a dead rat these days. I would get time off with no pay because I hurt their pride or something. Stay tuned for more pranks from back in the day.