For a short time I lived in an oil company bunkhouse which turned out to be a real exciting experience. One of the occupants, Jeff, was a Geologist who would get pulled out of bed by someone from a drilling rig at all hours of the night when something important, like suspected discovery of oil, was imminent. Jeff had told the appropriate people where his bunk was located, but the problem was that Jeff had told them the location of MY bunk so he could get just a few more minutes of sleep each time they came after him.
Jeff also had a habit of making a lot of noise when he came back from a drilling rig, usually around two or three in the morning. After several nights of being rousted out of bed and then having to help get Jeff up and on his feet and being awakened when he came in at those weird hours, I was beginning to think of revenge.
It just so happened that I had a goodly supply of firecrackers. (Don�t ask me why but I did.) Well, one night (i.e. 3 a.m.) Jeff came tromping back in from a drilling rig making so much noise he woke everybody up. By the time he finally got into bed there had been quite a few nasty comments made by all. Now ole Jeff was a real nervous jumpy sort of guy anyhow and I thought here is my chance. It was real quiet by now in the bunkhouse, but I knew Jeff hadn�t gone to sleep yet. I thought, "Hot dang, here is my chance!" I lit one of them big ole firecrackers and threw it right under Jeff�s bunk!
When that firecracker went off ole Jeff came up out of that bed like a rocket then ran over to his innocent roommate and jerked him up out of the bed threatening him with his life. Moe, the roommate, was already terrified from the explosion, had no idea what was going on, and now all of a sudden he thought he was about to get mortally wounded if not killed. Fortunately Moe convinced Jeff that he wasn�t the firecracker thrower, but the mystery of who did it was never proved. Jeff must have suspected who was the culprit though because he started giving people the correct location of his bunk from then on.
Now at this time I had to keep up with all the material and supplies in the warehouse and pipe yard. We had dozens of different kinds of oil well casing and tubing there and I used a great big crayon type marker to write the description of each kind right on the pipe. This marker just happened to be just slightly smaller than a stick of dynamite and one day when I was thinking I thought now if this thing was cut off at the end and a firecracker fuse was stuck in it you could really scare somebody.
So one day I had my fake dynamite all ready complete with a firecracker fuse. A trucker, named Truman, (not Harry) who had just delivered a load of oil well casing came in and sat down across from me at my desk. Since he was an amiable fellow I thought now is the time to see if this thing will work. I lit that sucker and then rolled it across my desk at him and Truman took off like a scalded cat and ran plum out of the building! When I finally retrieved him and showed him the �dynamite� was harmless he thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. That was a mistake on his part.
That very night Truman pulled the same prank on his wife while they were playing some kind of two-handed card game. She fell over backwards trying to stay alive meanwhile kicking the table over and scattered cards all over the place. About a week later when she began to speak to Truman they were playing cards again. When she rolled the same fake dynamite stick with sputtering fuse at Truman he said, "Heck woman, I just pulled that trick on you!" About that time the thing exploded blowing crayon and stuff all over Truman and the whole room. She had inserted a whole firecracker in it! I guess that just proves you should never pull a prank on a woman especially if it is your wife!
About that same time we had a Foreman called Tiny who was very particular about things being just right before he started up his car. After he got into his car it would take him about five minutes to get everything in exactly the right place before taking off. Well, it just so happened that I had a smoke bomb (harmless) that you could hook up to a spark plug on the engine. While Tiny was kept distracted in the office by a co-conspirator I hooked up the smoke bomb to his car. When Tiny got in his car he took his usual amount of time getting ready then turned on the ignition. There was a big boom and smoke boiled up from under the hood. After a couple of minutes Tiny decided he was still alive, came back into the office and said, "He**, I didn�t want to go to work anyhow!"
My best friend in the office, Don, would always get to work just barely right on time, but then he would immediately take something to read and go to the men�s room where you could bet he would be for at least ten minutes. By this time I was becoming an expert at firecracker schemes and came up with the brilliant idea of making one with a delayed fuse. I had inserted the fuse end of a firecracker into one end of a cigarette, lit the other end of the cigarette and tested it out. Took just a little under five minutes and boom! One morning right before Don headed for the men�s room I lit my cigarette/bomb and scotch taped it to the back of the commode. When that thing went off Don came busting out of the men�s room with his britches still at half mast. For a few minutes he would have killed me, but he couldn�t catch me with his pants down.
(That�s all for now folks!)