Much as I commend the glory of the extemporaneous, our prank was anything but improvised. Some of the ideas came as far back as the beginning of last year (that's 2002, ladies and gentlemen). Our esteemed organizer Logan Mills was ready with excel documents (and a comforting arm). Over 4000 cups were purchased, a veritable ocean of decorations were purchased, and as many as 60 cardboard boxes were brought in for the occasion.

Of course, not everything went as planned. The hobo's igloo, above, took many hours of painstaking, frustrating work. After folding the flattened boxes back into, uh, boxes, we cast about for an idea regarding what were going to DO with them. I thought a vast arch was needed, whereas others wanted a tunnel system. Alexi Gibson forged a compromise in the hobo's igloo. The first attempt was an utter disaster: constructed proper precision, weakly stitched together with tape, Igloo the first was never even completed, because the roof could not be sealed off without total instability. The final product used no tape and formed a complete hemisphere. The key was insuring that same-size boxes were used on each level, using a very circular formation, and thinking carefully from the beginning to the end.

...well...when we cut down the Hemlock tree awhile back, this crazy chainsaw guy came in and made them into these cool figures. And...uh...then...well...I guess they had a party.

With the -- *cough* -- excess cups, we decorated the math room with highly mathematical shapes, such as PYRAMIDS! and TRIANGLES! (see below for what most of the 4000 cups were used for...)

We dedicated an english/history room to a beloved freshman, Carter Hanson. The room was accompanied by a disturbing movie featuring various members of the senior class proclaiming, over and over, and over, and over: "Welcome to the Carter Hanson Room!" It gave one pause.

3500 cups from Roses (on Pantops), purchased lovingly. An elaborate system of cup laying. A quarter inch of water in each cup. Behold the work of Jack Meriweather and Dirk Kingma. Behold the glory of the cups. Behold and wonder.

       -- Hoy Loper, May 18, 2004

Editor's Note: For more, see Senior Prank Day at Tandem 2000, Pig Head in a Toliet [examples of other local pranks by former Tandem Board member Rey Barry] and Pranks by Young Al Gore.

Then send examples of local pranks you are familiar with to george@loper.org where they will be placed on my web site with full attribution.