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Original poster

The meanest joke/trick anyone has ever played on you?

305 replies

StarShop · 15/12/2019 16:10

I randomly got thinking about this event which led to my second story below and I wondered if it would make a for a good thread.

My first cruel joke was when my husbands workmates arranged the Christmas night out in a nearby city. We were going out in fancy dress, to a comedy club and then staying over. They decided we would go in fancy dress, the theme being the 70s. DH and I bought our outfits and when we turned up to the meeting point we discovered it was a joke on my DH and noone was wearing fancy dress until later in the evening. I got change into my 'next day' clothes which being in my 20s and being someone who made an effort was smart but as a young Mum who didn't go out much or ever stay away, I was robbed of a change to get dressed up nice for the earlier drinks.

The second story was on my wedding day. Our two photographers were DHs friends. We went for a shoot away from the venue in the back of one of their cars and they gave us a scratchcard as a wedding present. I scratched it and we had won £10,000. Everything went in slow motion, we were 21 and this would allow us to put a deposit on a house and start our married life off really special. It felt really magical to win that on our wedding day. A minute later they started giggling and I realised it was a fake scratchcard.

I'm glad to say none of these pranksters are in our lives anymore!!!

OP posts:
Mickhasnotorso · 15/12/2019 16:12

How horrible. Fortunately nothing of my own to add but wanted to share my outrage at your stories!

AnFiadhRuaRua · 15/12/2019 16:15

OH NO, i would have been devastated over the fake scratch card!

My family knew I was terrified of gas when I was young. I used to get up about 3 times in the night to check the gas was turned off. I imagined I could smell it. One time, we were on holiday and it was a new place and I imagined I could smell gas and they were all very impatient with me. I went to the shop and when I got back my Dad, my brother and my cousin were pretending to be dead.

That did NOTHING to help me get over my fear of gas.

Sockypuppet · 15/12/2019 16:15

Wow, I guess I'm lucky I've never had such mean pranks!

recrudescence · 15/12/2019 16:15

The last four years of the Labour Party.

austenozzy · 15/12/2019 16:16

Those fake scratch cards are really unkind and not at all funny.

speakout · 15/12/2019 16:18

Whe I was 20 by boyfriend was out for the night with his workmates.
One of his friends decided to phone me to tell me my boyfriend had been hit by a car and was in A&E.

A joke apparently.

PlausibleSuit · 15/12/2019 16:22

A few weeks after I came out (I'm a gay guy) one of my best friends told me she knew a guy she wanted to introduce me to. I was 18, lonely, and extremely naive. I thought all my dreams had come true!

She told me he lived in a different town, and she got me to write him letters and cards (this was in the mid 90s so largely pre-internet etc... I refer you back to the naive thing). He would write back, always through her.

Except a few weeks later, it turned out he didn't exist, and she'd made him up for a laugh (and/or because she had feelings for me). She'd been writing all the letters and cards that were supposedly from him. She confessed all one night, told me it was a practical joke that had gone too far, and then asked me on a date. Confused

If you've ever been so betrayed by someone you thought was a friend, that it feels like all the air has been sucked from your body, that was how it felt.

frankie001 · 15/12/2019 16:23

I know a friend who put up a post of a “winning” scratch card. Was devastating when she realised it was a fake. She was so embarrassed to have not realised but they look so realistic. Was very cruel.

Clevererthanyou · 15/12/2019 16:25

Anfiadh- that’s bloody awful!

Brimful · 15/12/2019 16:28

Not a trick as such, but something that still feels raw - on my birthday I met a friend for coffee in the morning (DH had made plans for us later in the day) and she handed me a card and said it contained a wonderful surprise.

Considering it was my birthday, I admit I was thinking 'oh wow, what has she gone to the trouble of doing/getting for me?' and I was so touched and grateful.

I opened the card, which had a cartoon picture of a stork on the front, and inside was a small ultrasound scan. It dawned on me she was announcing her pregnancy.

Around a fortnight previously, I'd confided to her that DH & I had just been told we were infertile after years and years of trying.

I was happy for her, but...yeah. it still smarts when I think about it.

readingismycardio · 15/12/2019 16:28

Jesus Christ, these are not pranks, these are all full evil. What a crappy world.

ElfAndSafeKey · 15/12/2019 16:29

I was a very anxious and nervous child.
My dad would find it funny to "lose me" in public (ie hide where he could see me) and watch me panic thinking I was alone. Especially hilarious in strange places far from home.

Charlottejbt · 15/12/2019 16:29

The scratchcard one is really mean. Sad

I had the fancy dress one too. I was a self-conscious teenager and made the mistake of telling my DM I was invited to a fancy dress party. She then made me wear a "fake sheikh" male Arab costume - white robes, headgear, the lot - which she had borrowed from a work friend. (I don't remember if I actually wore the beard. I hope to God I drew the line at wearing a fake beard.) Luckily I had put on normal clothes underneath, but I still had to walk into a nightclub dressed as the Sheikh of Araby in front of several hundred of my peers, not one of whom was in anything resembling fancy dress. It didn't help that I'd just started a new school and was desperate to make a good impression.

(BTW this was c. 1993 so cultural appropriation wasn't really a "thing"- though I'm sure if I ever went into politics the pictures would be all over the papers à la Justin Trudeau.)

I now refuse all invitations to fancy dress parties. :)

Mynxie · 15/12/2019 16:30

When I was a little girl (about 6 or 7) money was very tight with no scope for treats. One Christmas I was overjoyed to be given a massive bar of Cadbury’s milk chocolate, something I loved but seldom had. Imagine how I felt when my father started laughing - he’d seen a wooden display model being thrown out of a shop and had wrapped it up for me as a joke. I still remember the disappointment I felt 60 years later.

SerenDippitty · 15/12/2019 16:30

@Brimful that is hideous

Sweetpea55 · 15/12/2019 16:31

When I was 16 I started training as a cadet nurse.
Walking back to the ward one day a passed another cadet nurse who was a friend. She'd just been to collect some lotions from the pharmacy. She said one of the bottles was really smelly so she took the top off and we had a sniff.
A passing ambulance man knocked the bottle into my face and I was covered in blue dye all over my nose and top lip.
It wouldn't come off and for a shy teenager it was the end of the world and the hight of humiliation.
Ward sister was a tarter but she was furious and flew off to find ambulance man responsible. I cried for ages.

lostfrequencies · 15/12/2019 16:36

Brimful ThanksCakeBrew

bottlenose301 · 15/12/2019 16:57

Some of these are so bad. I hope most of you are no longer acquainted with these 'pranksters'.

abstractzebra · 15/12/2019 16:58

I absolutely hate pranks!
We used to do secret Santa at work. We are a friendly group of people and there would be the odd cheeky present but for the right person and appropriate.
As time went on we seemed to get an influx of really nasty people who just didn't seem to understand the friendly, fun nature of it all, sending inappropriate books and certificates calling people lazy c*nts etc and we had to stop it.
Sucked the fun right out of it!

Bezalelle · 15/12/2019 17:03

My so-called best friend once set up a fake email address and emailed me pretending to be a literary agent who was interested in my work. It was right at the start of my writing career, and I was absolutely gutted when he came clean.

justthecat · 15/12/2019 17:03

When I was about 16 I had a job cleaning a pub. One day my mother said my boss had come to the house and left a number to call him on.
Went to phone box and rang number, it was a pre recorded message, where somebody answers phone, then gets irate, whilst you think you’re talking to a real person.
Went home (didn’t get what had happened) then next time spoke to my boss in person who quite rightly didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, making me look stupid.
My own mother set me up and sadly it wasn’t the only time

VanyaHargreeves · 15/12/2019 17:04

Not telling me a party was casual and not dress up, I wore going out clothes, everyone else was in hoodies and jeans.

To cap it off, the lad who invited me disappeared during the night. I fancied him and thought thus might be the night and his housemate took great delight in announcing he was shagging a classmate of mine (uni) upstairs whilst making sure I heard.

I stayed long enough to not appear upset and then rang a taxi.

VanyaHargreeves · 15/12/2019 17:05

@Bezalelle

How awful I would have found that so soul crushing Thanks

Swirlygirl · 15/12/2019 17:08

When I was nine my ten my ‘d’f asked my to see how wide I could open my mouth. So I opened my mouth as wide as I could. Then he threw a hand full of casters (maggots in pupa stage) in my mouth Sad

He really was a shit dad.

JigsawsAreInPieces · 15/12/2019 17:08

These are awful, just awful! And the worst thing is I they've been done by ”friends” or family! Xmas Sad