Travel pranks
 

When you're traveling with a group, have you ever concoted any playful tricks to keep the atmosphere lively? Games? Costumes? I'm going on a trip with some old friends and I'm looking for some silly things to keep us laughing.

Sort of...

I have 6 brothers. Somewhere in early adulthood one of them found an old shirt with a crazy design on it and it happened to have the name "Danny" embroidered on it also. Danny is my oldest brother's name. So the shirt was bought and wrapped up for Christmas and presented to Danny when they all came home for Christmas. Somehow Danny smuggled the shirt into the suitcase of one of his younger brothers and a tradition was born. Whenever the boys get together the shirt will make an appearance and be secreted into someone's suitcase, usually not discovered until the receipant is home and unpacking. The shirt has been smuggled into backpacks, golf bags, legal briefcases etc. That shirt has traveled to Ireland, Hawaii, to weddings all over the country and each transfer is documented on the shirt in permanent marker. This has been going on since 1980.

Maybe your group can find a similar undesirable item and play hot potato with it.

One of my freinds that meets us for bike week in Myrtle Beach is notoriously late.

As a result about 35 of us form a pool to bet on the exact day and time he'll show up. I won almost $400 last year.

Looong time ago, in college. Travelling thru Spain alone. Met up with a group of 4 fellow travellers, then one other unknown, annoying straggler latches on to the group.

Took 4 days and 2 cities to ditch the guy - the 5 of us had to resort to "meet at 5pm at the train station" trick when we were on the 4pm outta dodge.

Somehow our family got into a duct tape kick. Now whenever someone or a group of us go on vacation we always pack duct tape. The fun part is when we get together and share the stories. We can laugh for hours about how many funny things we have done with duct tape.

Have you ever duct taped a jiffy pop to a big stick so you can pop it over a blazing campfire...we have!

A long time ago my sister and her boyfriend were traveling in a car behind us. I filled up a blue condom (that I bought a roadside bathroom machine) with water and threw it at her. Unfortunately, it bounced off her car and hit the car behind her. Okay, pretty stupid (and littering), but it seemed really funny at the time.

Parrothead: We've popped Jiffy Pop that way, too. :)

We spend a week rafting the Salmon River every summer. Each year we have a new hat (some gaudy creation) that has to be worn by the person that screws up their run through the rapids or hits a rock. The hat gets passed around all week.

We also have a camp decoration contest. One year we had a large, cheap sun umbrella for the front of our tent. Another year, my parents had a blow up plastic flamingo for the front of their tent.

Once while I was home sick with a fever I purchased an "Eyebrow Makeover Kit" from QVC or HSN. (They said it would improve my life.)

WIth the kit you get templates of famous eyebrows (Marilyn, Brooke, MOmmie Dearest whats her name)which you place over top of your own sad eyebrowns and then color them in with this big fat brown make up crayon.

So I have taken this on a ski trip weekend with girlfriends and then to a family reunion vacation.

Both time brought it out after dinner when everyone is hanging out...get one or two volunteers...both times side splitting pee-in-your pants roll on the floor laughing and we are stilling talking about it.

do a google search of pranks or practical jokes...or google George Clooney, he's supposedly the master of pranks....here's one interesting page.....
http://www.student.uit.no/~paalde/re.../Pranks30.html

A bunch of us stay in a big house on Cape Cod every summer (6 adults and 4 kids) and we just do stupid, childish tricks like putting things in pillows or under the sheet, writing notes on toilet paper rolls, eat. Make rabbit ears behind someone's head as they're having their picture taken. Sometimes later in the evening the guys will walk down the street to the local watering hole and have a few, come back and maybe fall asleep on the couch. He may get his face done with makeup and his hair teased and picture taken. Sometimes we do things to someone who has fallen asleep on the beach (someone in our group).

I know, it's really immature. But we laugh all week.

you could always take along one of those by the decade trivia games.

first of all, Buffalo girl, where do you stay on Cape Cod? I'm dying to go there some day and would love to rent a house. Details, please!

My funny story...we rented an RV many years ago because I refuse to sleep on the ground i.e. "camping." We parked it in front of our house and our friend made a HUGE long sign that said "if this be a rockin' don't come a knockin." We couldn't figure out why everyone was honking and pointing at our motorhome. Then we looked on the opposite side and lo and behold was this sign. I could have died of embarrassment! We took it to the campground and posted it on every one of the rv's in our group. What a great time we had with that sign! We held on to that sign and sadly our friend died at the young age of 47 of pancreatic cancer years later. I wanted to put it on his casket, but I felt it wasn't right...but i know he would have LOVED it!

whoops, I should have said "we didn't know he posted the sign on the rv...it was a surprise."

Went on an out of town football trip with a bunch of friends and brought along a pink plastic flamingo...anyone who wanted to play, put in $5 and the winner wound up with over a hundred bucks...

the rules were simple... the person who ended up holding the flamingo when we boarded the plane home won the money... if you had the flamingo you had to carry it with you to all events, meals, pool, and public situations... you could never hide the bird in your room at night (this allows for secret missions) and no alliances...

I have never seen a group of adults laugh harder and plan more in their attempts to steal the bird... on one mission we waited (cocktails in hand) for a wife to leave the room for ice. only to find the husband "sleeping in bed" with the flamingo... after some gentle persuasion, he rolled over, allowing a hasty and giggly exit...

In all the bird was in the possesion of every player at some time during the trip and several times players actually gave it away (our churchgoer refused to take the bird to Mass)

At the end of the trip, we all signed the flamingo and now it holds a proud place at our local tavern... those were the days my friend....

tennislvr1: My SIL rents an outrageously expensive private home and invites a bunch of us to join her. The owner only rents it out one week per year, usually to my SIL!

I've heard of folks who take a silly token of some sort on a trip, and manage to pass it around among themselves, and it becomes a symbol. What kinds of things would work?

During a family reunion trip, we ordered delivery pizza. One of the dads replaced the pizza with a coiled up rubber snake. When the hungry teenage boys opened the box the reaction was, of course, classic! Never have I heard brave, macho, grown boys scream like little girls!

Van Ness: re-item passed around. How about Flat Stanley?

MellisaHi: I loved the thread you'd started on Flat....Van_Ness could have fun with him....and the flamingo! here's your link to Mellisa's thread....you could have some fun with Flat - he recently appeared a lot in .....well, you'll have to go to the thread to find out !
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...1&tid=3458

Bennie-Love the story about the shirt. What a great family you have!