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Students describe greatest April Fools' Day pranks

March 31, 2013

The Sparty mascot will be replaced with a baby sloth — April Fools! From impersonating an MSU men’s hockey player to waking up soaked by water guns, here are a few pranks told by students and faculty.

Punked by peanuts

The last thing someone might expect when opening their door, besides finding Narnia, is a pile of Styrofoam packing peanuts.

“My brother’s friend took a refrigerator box and cut one side out and placed it up to someone’s door in the barracks,” dietetics senior Jaclyn Comstock said. “(The box was filled) with packing peanuts, so when the person on the other side of the door opened it, all the peanuts came spilling into the room.”

Sleep with one eye open

From stapling hot dogs to their roommates’ ceiling to planting a picture of rapper Kanye West underneath brothers’ sheets, Phi Gamma Delta, or Fiji, members take their pranks seriously.

“Especially at the frat house … don’t fall asleep in a public area — something will happen to you, even if it’s just Sharpie on your face,” human biology junior Jon Christ said. “One of my roommates was sleeping and we had those toy squirt guns, so we went and sprayed him to wake him up. He wasn’t too happy.”

Sparty takes the hit

The Wolverines aren’t the only ones who mess with Sparty.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if something was done to Sparty on April Fools’ considering last week he was oiled up for the game,” MSU Director of Building Services Gaston Gosselin said.

But it was 99 cents

A class knocking textbooks to the ground in unison and covering a team members’ car with toilet paper weren’t the only pranks pulled in high school.

“In high school, we wanted to set up a garage sale for my history teacher without him knowing,” journalism junior Henrik Blix said.

“We … went out to a bunch of garage sales and bought a bunch of random stuff. At like, 4 a.m., we had two caravans of people set up the garage sale. Our teacher woke up later that morning to the garage sale on his front lawn and actually found money in his mailbox from customers.”

Impersonation embarrassment

Halloween isn’t the only night to act like someone you’re not, but for some, it might not be good to impersonate MSU men’s hockey player Dean Chelios.

“One of my friends looks like Dean Chelios and he pretended to be him in Conrad’s (College Town Grill) one night and actually convinced some people that he really was him,” Blix said. “Chris Chelios, his father, was standing behind my friend in line and said, ‘No, you are not. He’s my son.’ It was pretty funny.”

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