Prankin'
Today I rushed to school, because I knew what I was going to see when I arrived. I, unlike most of the Uni school, was one of the privileged seniors who knew just what lay behind the lounge doors before Ms. Kovacs swung them open.
Balloons. Lots and lots of balloons. Different colors. Different shapes. And even one that was termed “the butt balloon” by some of the guys for its resemblance to well … a butt. Mature, I know.
I don’t want to call our bit of ingenuity a “senior prank,” because I’m not sure it qualifies as one. It’s hardly daring and definitely doesn’t make a statement. I doubt people are going to say, “The class of 2007?!? They were too cool! They put balloons in their lounge!”
The initial idea was playpen balls, but the cost caused us to rethink that idea. Another idea was discarded because of the potential for too much school damage.
Although some people expressed their opinions of our action on the balloons, I thought it was a senior antic that fit our class very well. Subtle, colorful, and non-inciting of faculty wrath.
But I especially liked the chalk drawings in the front. I liked seeing “We Love Ellen” scribbled underneath her window and the soccer records displayed in bright and bold colors. It embodied some of the things we were most proud of as a class and wanted to celebrate before we left.
Maybe that’s even better than spreading a rumor that syphillis was spreading rapidly as the Blacksburg High School Class of 2004 did. Although their idea was truly a prank that even had many parents sending their kids off to be examined, ours was sentimental.
Was it perfect? No, we could probably have done something a little more flamboyant, and I really do hope that the Class of 2008 pulls out all the stops (I am sure they will), but I also love balloons and loved filling the lounge with them.
(And our balloons were much better than the Class of 2006’s prank, which was … as far as I recall, nothing?)
— Dana Al-Qadi