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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:
Illcallbacklater · 15/12/2019 19:41

@alexafindfilms how mean. Shame on you.

vintagesewingmachine · 15/12/2019 19:41

I clicked on this thread thinking that it might be amusing but I am absolutely horrified and quite distressed by most of the stories. A prank by someone you barely know is pretty unpleasant but the so-called "jokes" by family members or apparently close friends make me want to cry. What do these people get from making others unhappy/terrified/humiliated? They must be very damaged to want to inflict such distress on anyone, let alone those closest to them. 🌹🌹🌹🌹 for you all

SlayingDragons · 15/12/2019 19:41

I have had a few - some were definitely not pranks and actually bullying though - no matter what the perpetrators would have said.

The one that sticks in my head was the day my DH and I went to the hospital for DH to have a post-cancer treatment check up and to get the test results which would tell us if his treatment had worked or if there was still cancer in his body. The scan had been done 3 months post end of treatment and we’d had to wait 4 weeks for the results so it was 4 months in total of just not knowing - it was horrendous.

We went in and the doc just started going on about the usual check up stuff. After about 5 minutes DH interrupted her and asked for the results and she told him that she didn’t have them yet and was waiting for them to come through on the computer. We were devastated and totally freaked out.

Eventually, after a 20min appointment, she picked up a piece of folded paper which had been on the desk the entire time and handed to my DH. It was his results.

We were so completely relieved to find that he was cancer free but so completely angry at her “trick”. I was nearly vomiting from the fear, I was physically shaking through most of the appointment. DH was no better inside but was hiding it a little better on the outside. She must have known how terrified we were. I’m not sure I will ever forgive her for that

checkerbabes · 15/12/2019 19:42

I still can't quite believe how much I was bullied and made to look silly by my own family.

When my first ever boyfriend started to say things like "nobody would want you" blah blah, etc, I almost laughed my head off and ran for the hills.

Never, ever, again.

TooManyPaws · 15/12/2019 19:42

Gods, you're a nasty bully, @alexafindfilms. I really hope that your brother humiliates you you before going NC.

Dowser · 15/12/2019 19:44

Oh swirlygirl what a bastard

user1471453601 · 15/12/2019 19:44

These are not jokes or trickes. These are just cruel.

Here is a practical joke that worked. A cold, windy, rainy Monday. A packed tram full of commuters going to work. As team pulls away from the stop, the driver announced that tiebreak was faulty and would pull into the next station.

As we commuters knew,the next station has no shelter, so we were going to get wet through.

Driver then announced that it we were upset by this,we should should complain the their customer service manager, mister king. That was mr Joe king.

Cue several hundred grumpy Monday morning commuters laughing as the team headed off in its expected direction.

We, the commuters, had been made to feel bad for all of thirty seconds. Not for the night. And the vast majority of us were the butt of the joke. Not the few

DontDribbleOnTheCarpet · 15/12/2019 19:46

The cruelty of these stories is heart-breaking. I've always hated pranks because they all seem to rely on someone being humiliated, which isn't funny.
My family didn't go in for practical jokes because they just went straight for the cruelty without dressing it up as a joke. Less of a head fuck perhaps, which is something.

Garlicinyoursoul · 15/12/2019 19:46

Oh God, that sounds horrible, nasty gits!

I was in a friendship group in school, we were all very close, and often visited each other’s houses after school, even though we lived quite far from each other.
One day after school my oldest friend’s boyfriend rang me, professing his undying love for me.

I asked him what the hell he was going on about, we’d never spent any time together apart from in a group, and always with her.
He kept on and on about how he was going to break up with my friend, and wanted to know if I wanted to be his girlfriend.
After saying it was weird and that no, I didn’t want to be his girlfriend a good ten times, I began to realise that this was very strange, and it felt like a set up.
I asked him to put my friend on the phone, and he started to splutter that she wasn’t there.
I then got really angry, and asked him to ‘Put the fucking bitch on the phone’ he didn’t know what else to do so did as I asked and she was in fits of giggles, as were two other friends of mine who were there.
She started saying it was just a joke and I needed to get a sense of humour. I told her that she was insane, asked her what exactly I’d done to deserve it, and finally to go fuck herself.

A couple of years later her now ex-boyfriend told me that she was convinced we had a ‘thing’ for each other, and wanted him to prove his loyalty to her by making me confess that I loved him, and then he was to humiliate me by saying he didn’t mean it.

I asked him if he realised how crazy that sounded, he just apologised and said he was young, stupid and in love.

Dowser · 15/12/2019 19:48

Checkerbabes
I’m so sorry
That was horrendous

QueenOfTheAndals · 15/12/2019 19:50

My entire family were away and I was home alone and one of my mum's mates and her son thought it would be funny for him to put on a ski mask and come up to our kitchen window with a crowbar. I screamed and hit the panic button on our burglar alarm and was about to call the police when his mum knocked on the door to reveal it was a joke. I don't know what they were thinking.

VanyaHargreeves · 15/12/2019 19:51

Just can't my head round the mentality of these aggressors

checkerbabes Thanks

1FootInTheRave · 15/12/2019 19:51

Good god, humans are awful 😡

IncrediblySadToo · 15/12/2019 19:57

@checkerbabes I’m SO sorry, that’s beyond vile, I just want to hug that little girl and tell her it’s her Daddy missing out and that her her NaN is a nasty bitch.

I’m sorry for everyone else too.. I haven’t read a single one that’s made me think ‘well it was kind of funny...’ they’re all just bloody nasty!

@alexafindfilms. Exactly what SDTG said.

I think I’m very fortunate as I can’t think of anything that was intended to be a ‘joke’ that was horrible. A few horrible things, but they were always intended to be. And a few thoughtless things, but that’s life really isn’t it.

resipsa · 15/12/2019 20:01

Some of these make my blood run cold. As for the school ones, it my day a trick was something like having your pencil case stolen. If any of the school ones happened to my DD, I really don't know what I'd do!

rhubarbcrumbles · 15/12/2019 20:04

His Dad thought it would be funny to wake up really early and go outside...then set off loads of bangers outside my sleeping husband's bedroom window.

Christ, that's appalling. I know where I'd have wanted to shove the bangers.

caoraich · 15/12/2019 20:05

Bloody hell. People are shits.

When I was pregnant my ex boyfriend from many years previously, who I'd maintained reasonably friendly contact with, texted me to say he had found out he had HIV and didn't know how long he'd had it for. Then he ghosted me until April 1st when he got in touch saying "April fools". Thankfully I knew that as I'd had all the screening bloods done I was fine, but it was a shitty thing to do.

rhubarbcrumbles · 15/12/2019 20:08

checkerbabes that's awful.

alexa you really are a nasty piece of work.

Original poster
StarShop · 15/12/2019 20:08

I think pranks have their place, maybe in families where its a game to see who can pull off the biggest prank and is given as well as its taken.

For the most part though these are unwelcome pranks where this game doesn't exist.

OP posts:
ElfAndSafeKey · 15/12/2019 20:08

checkerbabes that is awful. I'm sorry that happened to you.

ittooshallpass · 15/12/2019 20:09

I had just started a job overseas and was half excited, half terrified. I worked in a small office where we were all expected to answer the phone. I was nervous about this as I wasn't great on the phone.

One day my worst fears came true when I answered a call from an irate 'local' who ranted and raved at how as a foreigner I was depriving a 'local' of a job. I spluttered and stuttered my justification for being there; which everyone could hear.

After 5 minutes the caller started laughing and I realised it was my cousin who thought it was hilarious that I'd tried to justify myself. I was mortified. I'd never come across pranks before... I have never liked them since.

QueenOfCatan · 15/12/2019 20:10

When I was ten I was invited to the popular girl's 11th birthday party. Her birthday was on Halloween so it was fancy dress and Halloween themed. Except it wasn't fancy dress, I was the only one who was given an invite specifying fancy dress so I turned up dressed as a witch with face paint and everything and my mum refused to let me come home and made me "stay and enjoy it anyway" Angry I still have issues with my mother and the way she ignored my horrific bullying all through school.

YouJustDoYou · 15/12/2019 20:10

The guy I was completely in love with. His friends said he wanted to talk to me at the party (we were only 14). I went over, and they all proceeded to spit on me. Laughing at me, saying "as if he'd want something like you!" Affected me for life, to be honest.

Pomfluff · 15/12/2019 20:11

@SlayingDragons
That sounds utterly horrendous! Could it be possible that that she only realised the results were on the table towards the end? I had a similar experience where an IT error meant the results appeared as pending in the computer, however she had the results printed out in a folder and only realised this much later. I can't fathom why a doctor would find "prank" a cancer patient about their results.

My experience isn't as awful but annoying all the same. DH took our newborn daughter for her checkups in another part of the hospital as I was stuck in bed after a c-section. They did a blood test by drawing blood out of her head which was totally harmless, but bandaged it up using a massive wad of gauze held in place with a stretchy net. Needless to say that looked terrifying on a newborn baby. I had a head injury in my teens and was stitched and bandaged up the same way.

I had no idea what tests they ran, and was obviously not expecting her to look any different. DH wheeled her back in the room wrapped up like a mummy saying "Please don't be alarmed...she um, fell off the table." I swear my heart stopped for the three seconds before he laughed and said "just kidding". She was wailing her head off and I cried while breastfeeding her afterwards. Looking back we can laugh at the memory but at the time it was the worst joke to make to a post-partum hormone ridden new mum!

Marmablade · 15/12/2019 20:14

I suppose I should have known better because the title says 'worst'. The only 2 I might find amusing are the gnome and the train driver/no shelter. All the others aren't pranks. They're cruelty dressed up as banter/pranks.

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