In 2007, at the end of Jeremy’s senior year, he and his fellow classmates were brainstorming possible ideas for a senior prank. One of the ideas was to cover the entire football field in poppy seeds. Poppies would then grow all over the field and it would be illegal to remove them because poppies are the California state flower. So, the poppies would hypothetically always be all over the football field.

Senior pranks are supposed to be done at the end of senior year, a little before graduation. Brainstorming ideas for them usually begins at the beginning of senior year, though sometimes people start thinking about possible senior pranks even earlier. Seniors usually start making concrete plans about a senior prank a few months before they actually plan to pull the prank. This means they probably choose which one they want to pull, decide when to pull it, and start preparing by collecting necessary materials and items.

One of Jeremy’s classmates came up with the idea. Jeremy is not sure if his classmate got the idea from somewhere else, or if it was his classmate’s own original idea.

While he was telling me about this senior prank, he was laughing throughout the story. He did not think of this practical joke as something destructive or malicious, he just thought of it as something seniors do. Seniors are supposed to pull some kind of prank before they graduate; it is not an attack on the school or the faculty at all. Putting poppy seeds all over the football field would have just been in the name of good fun and humor.

The period between two phases in life is called a liminal period. In this period, we usually find practical jokes being performed and that is what senior pranks are. Pulling a senior prank is a social and psychological rite of passage. It is supposed to mark the seniors’ commencement. They are exiting high school, ending that chapter in life, and beginning a new chapter at college. I feel as if seniors are obligated to pull a senior prank because it is tradition. I agree with Jeremy that senior pranks are just done in the name of good fun; no harm is meant by these pranks. They know they are leaving high school soon, and they are both nervous and excited. So, they put that excitement and nervous energy into an intentionally silly prank. Although these seniors are celebrating graduating and are happy to leave high school, I think the fact that seniors feel the need to leave a mark through pulling a prank, to leave a trace of themselves, shows that they want to be remembered. This necessity to leave a trace of themselves behind, to be remembered, is even more evident by how much time and energy seniors put into making these pranks particularly clever and humorous. They would not try so hard to make their pranks clever and distinct if they did not want their pranks and themselves to be remembered. This effort shows that seniors have a nostalgic tendency. Most seniors are going to miss high school or parts of it and they just want to always have a piece of themselves there in their past.

Mike was mad at friends of his for a mean joke they played on him. To get back at them, he pulled a prank on them. These two male friends were going snowboarding, so right before their trip, Mike wreaked havoc. He knows one hates bananas and that the other hates fish. So, he took both pairs of their snowboarding gloves. He put banana-flavored baby food inside the gloves of the friend who hates bananas. He bought a can of tuna and put the tuna water inside the gloves of the friend who hates fish. He had a gigantic dildo, which was given to him as a joke, a gag gift of sorts. He put the dildo on the handle on the back of the truck. His friends drove to Lake Tahoe with a giant dildo hanging off the back of the truck the entire time. His friends could not wear the gloves while snowboarding because they were gross and disgusting.

Mike came up with this prank by himself; it was an original idea of his. He played this practical joke as a way of revenge. He is a practical joker, but he does not usually play such mean ones unless he feels he has been wronged. He and his friends can look back on this prank and laugh now, but at the time his friends were really angry when they figured out it was he who played these awful tricks on them. He said he would not advise me or anyone else to ever play this prank on someone because this caused a huge fight between him and his two friends. So, although he now sees this prank as humorous, he knows it was the wrong thing to do in response to a wrong done to him.

I laughed a lot when he told me this story, not quite realizing the implications it had for he and his friend’s friendship. It was a painful time for them after the prank was pulled. Although I laughed, I would never do this to my friends. It was funny to hear because it was a situation my friends and I were far removed from. It was funny because it was not something that happened to us. I know it would hurt my friends a lot if I ever ruined their snowboarding trip. I know I would be upset if I found a giant dildo on the back of my truck, and if I could not wear my snowboarding gloves because they smelled and felt disgusting.

I find the prank humorous because in our society, practical jokes are acceptable; people are almost expected to laugh at pranks. Other people in other societies might not find Mike’s prank or similar pranks funny at all. In fact, as an example, people from India might be indignant at the fact that Mike wasted food on this prank. Groups such as extremely religious, conservative ones might think the use of the dildo was completely inappropriate as well.

Stephanie’s French Joke

“La nouvelle institutrice a envie d’inculquer des notions de psychologie à ses élèves.

Elle s’adresse à la classe en ces termes:

– Que celui qui a l’impression d’être stupide par moment se lève !

Après une bonne dizaine de secondes, Toto se lève… de mauvaise grâce.

L’institutrice:

– Alors comme ça Toto, tu penses que de temps en temps tu peux être stupide ?

– Non m’dame, mais ça me faisait de la peine de vous voir toute seule debout.”

“A new teacher wanted to teach her students about a psychology theory.

So she said:

– Whoever thinks they’re stupid, please stand up!

After a while, Toto stands up reluctantly.

She says: So, Toto, once in a while you think you’re stupid?

Toto: No, ma’am, it just pained me to see you standing up alone.”

Stephanie went to Lycée Français La Pérouse in San Francisco for elementary school. She learned this joke at recess from her friend Victor. She thought the joke was “funny at the time because we hated our teachers so it was a way to make fun of them.” To her, the joke “means rebelling against the teacher by poking fun.” When she first heard the joke, she would tell her friends on the playground. She would tell them during a time when they were exchanging jokes.

I laughed out loud when I heard this joke. I agree with Stephanie that it is not meant as a real insult to teachers, it was just a way to poke fun. As a kid, one always wants to rebel against authority. Authority was typically schoolteachers. She and her friends at the French school in San Francisco snickered at the joke during recess. It was their way of getting back at the teachers for being overbearing authority figures.

We have separate ideas of what is funny in different cultures. Through this joke, I was able to discover that French kids in America and American kids in America have similar ideas regarding teachers as authority figures. Both groups think of teachers as annoying and people who should be made fun of. Both groups see teachers as people to rebel against.

Humor deals with unconscious repression. In polite society, we repress aggression. In front of adults, these kids would have never uttered this joke. They only mentioned it on the playground at recess because it was a secret of sorts; it was very private—for kids only. They were not supposed to “hate” their teachers or harbor angry thoughts towards them. They were supposed to repress those feelings. However, these feelings/inclinations pop up in jokes, as evidenced by the kids using this joke and laughing about it secretly at recess.