Replies

Never in the army, but I have done all the send new guys out for imaginary stuff on the construction site.A marine taught us this one so it was probaly done quite a bit in the services. When a new guy came to work one of the men would say that my mom was a classical piano player and was world famous. If you wanna get on Mikes good side go over and say I hear your mom is one of the worlds greatest piano players.

It almost never failed. He would ask me about my mom and I would get in his face and start yelling and screaming and tell him my mom doesnt have any arms. Which one of these idiots put you up to saying something as dumb as that.Poor guys felt really really low. I was pretty good at my part though and sometimes we would not let him know it was a joke for awhile.

In the early 60s, the Russian radio operators knew that the US intercept operators were listening in. The cagey Sovs would very slowly lower the volume on their transmitters, while we would just as slowly increase the volume on our receivers, trying to maintain cover. As soon as they had turned their volume down as low as it would go, they'd turn their volume back up full. The noise would cause our headsets to vibrate and our earwax to flood out.

The piano prank is pretty cruel...because my mom doesn't have any arms.

BTW, telling people to look for things exists among all types of workers, including accountants.