UPDATE: This Giveaway is now closed.
I found this story online and it made me smile. I just had to share and give the mom a high five for her reaction.
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On June 14th, Mom Aubrey Dupree Seymour woke up to find her house covered in toilet paper, but instead of getting angry, she posted a photo and message on Facebook:
“To the kids that TP’d our house last night, I have a few choice words for you…AMAZING job, you have given me faith that there are still youths that choose to go ABOVE and BEYOND. One day I believe you will change the world with your DETERMINATION to be the best. I do have you on my ring and when I find out who you are…game on my friend, we too have a Costco size supply of TP. 🤣#summer,#rightofpassage, #kidsjustwannahavefun“
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A note to parents everywhere… As a kid who grew up in the 80’s {and did her fair share of TPing houses} this is EXACTLY how you are suppose to react when you wake up to find the ends of toilet paper rolls swaying back and forth in your trees.
Back in the day, getting your house TPed or TPing someone else’s house was sort of a right of passage. There really wasn’t anything malicious about it. It was meant to be funny. Sneaking out and coordinating the meet up area with friends, stashing copious amounts of TP so your parents wouldn’t find it, throwing those rolls of toilet paper high up in the trees and watching them trail down, walking away from a job well done… and not getting caught, that was the best part.
Because everyone knew if you got caught in the act, you’d have to clean it up. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Side note: The summer before high school, my family came home from being away for the weekend to find our entire front yard COVERED in toilet paper. And when I say covered, I mean COVERED. The neighbors college aged daughter came over and was even like, WOW, they did a niiiiiiiiiice job.
My parents were not amused. And I think my Dad was going to call the cops but my mother somehow talked him out of it. My brother and I thought the whole thing was pretty funny.
I’ll admit, I was kinda sorta the queen of toilet papering houses when I was in high school. 😉 And my friends and I, we didn’t just TP houses, we also forked lawns and one time {and I have no idea why, maybe the store was out of toilet paper or we were just looking for a little variety?} we tossed a ridiculous amount of potatoes on my friend Jason’s lawn. HOW STUPID {and very teenager like} was that?
It was so dumb. Sooooo dumb. But we thought it was hilarious.
Did his parents call the cops? No. Because hey, free potatoes.
So here’s to being a kid. And to parents not overreacting. 🙂 🙂 🙂
How You Can Win A Case of Toilet Paper
Leave a comment about something harmless you and your friends did as teens, you know, back in the day before social media ruled the day and people overreacted about every single little thing. I’ll pick 2 winners at random and send each of you a case of toilet paper. Because hey, who couldn’t use a case of free toilet paper? 😉
Just answer that one question and you’re entered to win.
Note: This is the part where I my husband is making me tell you that TPing houses is a no-no and a waste of perfectly good toilet paper.
Rules
1 entry per person/ip address. If you cheat, you will totally be disqualified.
This giveaway ends Friday, June 28th 2019 @9 pm EST and the winner will be announced in the June 29th weekend highlights post. You will be notified via email and have 24 hours to claim your prize. If you do not claim your prize within 24 hours, the prize will be forfeited.
Good Luck! I hope you win!
♥ Mavis
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Turkey Rug as of 7 am Tuesday morning.
Ashlee Dasilva says
When i was a teen I would duck down and sneak through the neighbor’s yard to avoid walking up a huge hill to get home. It always felt like I was doing something bad and someone was going to come out and yell at me.
Rachel says
So fun! I never toilet papered houses but I did help put our high school up for sale. We took for sale signs from the surrounding neighborhoods and placed them in our school’s yard. there were probably at least 50+ signs. Probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do but it was pretty funny to hear the time (back in the 90’s).
Judy Johnson says
My best friend across the street was always on restriction so to practice our fifes we would sit at our open bedroom windows and play ” together” . A fife carries for miles so I shudder now to think what the other neighbors thought. You can only hear Yankee Doodle a thousand times before you go a bit bonkers!
Peggy says
One summer while visiting my grandparents my cousins and I snuck out after everyone was asleep. We went to one farmers barn and took his milk cow and walked her to another farm and left her in that farmers barn. We then walked his donkey back and left it in first farmers milking stall.
Deborah says
A couple of friends and I got about 2 dozen eggs. It was Halloween. We were going to throw eggs at our friends cars. Well, when we got back home, we still had all our eggs left. I guess they were avoiding us. I’d never done that before and never did it again.
Katie P NC says
We TP’d houses all the time with our church youth group. One time one of the dads pulled his gun on us and chased us in his pickup truck, honking his horn and yelling through the neighborhood (why yes, I do live in the South). Finally we pulled over at a gas station or something outside the neighborhood because we were so scared. He didn’t do anything to us but did make us come back and clean it up that night. I think that was the last time we TP’d as a group activity.
We also used to go cliff jumping in a local rock quarry. One of the cliffs was about 3 stories tall with a garden hose that you had to use to climb out. Totally trespassing, totally dangerous, full on adrenaline rush every single time.
BeckyM says
I once watched as the band boys pick up and move a friends VW Rabbit onto the grass outside the band room. 🙂
Sue says
Hey, this sounds very familiar, cause this happened to my husband here in central Alabama.
nancy says
When I was in middle school I had a sleep over party. We all decided to toilet paper the meanest boy in our class who had terrorized every girl on our school bus. Only problem was we needed a ride there. My mom, trying to be the best “girl friend” in the world was persuaded to drive us there and let us tp the entire yard. Nope, we never got caught as we raced back to her waiting car. She was just the best! On that following Monday we could overhear the nasty boy telling all his buddies on the bus how he spent the entire Sunday cleaning up his yard of toilet paper. Believe me, he deserved it and revenge was sweet. hahhahhahaha
Wendy Clark says
I was pretty tame as a teen, but I did TP someone’s house one time with a group of girls. We thought we were so cool and sly. And prank phone calls. Back before caller id you could fill a whole night up at a slumber party with prank calls. We thought we were hilarious.
Mel says
I would much prefer finding toilet paper in the yard rather than the beer bottles we normally find after parties at the frat house down the street. They park all along our front lawn and leave all kinds of stuff. We found one partygoer’s cell phone once, so we had to use to the emergency contacts on the phone to get in touch with the kid to return it. We left it in a Ziploc on our porch for him to collect, and he left a really heartfelt note of thanks.
Nancy Henning says
I can’t take credit for these pranks because my sisters and I were the recipients.
We were living in hot humid Louisiana when I was in high school. My parents had purchased an ancient VW bug for us to drive. One of our “friends” decided to place some limburger cheese under the front seat of the bug while the car was sitting in the sun. When we opened the door, the smell was overwhelming. We thought something had died in there.
Another time we had parked the VW bug in the grass parking lot by the football field. After the football game, we discovered that a few someones had picked up the bug and turned it sideways in the parking spot so we had to wait for the other cars to leave before we could head home.
We never considered these pranks malicious. It was more a badge of honor.
Tina says
Putting a dollar bill on a string and pulling on it when someone tried to pick it up.
Peggy says
Wow, you’re bringing back some amazing memories!!! We did this as kids too. We would write on the road only with soap, only things like ‘Happy Halloween’ smiley faces, things like that. My mom would’ve killed us if it was anywhere on something than the road…meaning now houses, windows, personal property. Once my older brothers and sisters strung toilet paper in the trees to hang down high enough that the school bus would have to drive through it like a runner crossing the finish line, and they got a kick out of it the next morning when it did! The soap on the road was totally harmless, my mom had guidlines….not too much, keep it simple and positive, and of course, no signing our names. We only did this at Halloween time, it’s what country kids did for fun back in the ’70’s.
Sheree says
I didn’t get out much as a teen so didn’t do any of that back then but after I got married we (my husband and I) forked my BIL’s lawn. I have to tell you it was one of the most fun things I’ve done in my life! We forked a lot of yards back then. It was just a *thing* in our social circle. You knew if you got forked that someone liked you enough to prank you haha.
Cecile says
The thing is if you are careful with the clean up, free toilet paper! That’s why you recycle the cardboard tubes from your own, so you can roll it back onto the tubes! lol
It was tradition to put as much confetti into the bridal car at weddings, but my silly brother gave me the keys to his town house so we could feed their fish. Not only did we use regular confetti, but we found these micro foam beads and metallic confetti. The trick is to put it into spots they least think of and do it in such a way they can’t detect it’s there. Bath towels opened up and filled with confetti then refolded ever so carefully. Work boots, out of season winter boots, umbrellas etc. I heard for months about each time they found something! I think the best was using vaseline on their toilet seats making it super smooth so the first time they sat down they would have no idea!
I must add, this was after my own chivalry, in our tiny apartment we had rust and gold shag, yes SHAG carpet, they covered the floor and every flat spot with a couple bails of straw! My mother in law made a gorgeous bald eagle out of ceramics and the family decided they would create a nest out of straw under it and take all the eggs from the fridge and lay them out in the nest! My husband use to save beer caps, he had a couple five gallon buckets full of them, they poured them out under our fitted sheet on our bed. This was all fun and games until we were in an accident in Chattanooga TN on our honeymoon and had to stay an extra week (we are from Canada) because the tractor trailer that hit us totaled our truck. The eggs were rotten, and no matter how guilty my mom felt after hearing of our accident she could not get the straw out of that carpet! lol She left us to find the beer caps and all the labels off our canned items. It’s too bad people don’t do this fun stuff anymore, isn’t it? lol
Georgie says
Wow Mavis, you are transporting us back to the good times! I admit to my fair share of TPing and also lifting election signs from front yards… all while riding around in the back of a pick-up truck under the cover of darkness. You know, safety first! We did get chased by a farmer with a shotgun once, and that scared us for a week. Best prank ever was when us girls in the church youth group made brownies with chocolate flavored ex-lax for a retreat; we didn’t eat them, but ALL the guys spent a lot of time in the bathroom that weekend!
Karen says
I live at the seashore and at the end of the season, on Labor Day afternoon, when most vacationers left, we would go to the “ tunnel of love” or whatever the boat and water ride was called that season , and pour bottles of dish detergent into the water. Then when out we would wait about an hour and watch all the bubbles pouring out of the enter and exit areas. We usually got the front page photo in the regional paper the next day!
Julie Astry says
When I was in high school, one of our group was moving away so three of us snuck into her house one morning and “kidnapped” her by putting a bag over her head and dragging her out to the car and stuffing her into the trunk. We didn’t want to drive with her there so we put her in the back seat and took off. We had a awesome going away party waiting for her at the end of this trip and when we arrived and took off her hood we yelled surprise. Unfortunately, she knew something was up because she could see by looking through the bottom of the bag over her head at her mom’s fuzzy slippers, that her mother held the back door of their house open for the kidnappers. I also also ate a whole box of chocolate X-lax but that’s a tale for another day.
Amy S says
Yes, my friends and I spent a lot of time TPing (and cleaning up) houses!
Angela Spicer says
We also did some toilet papering in our time. I also filled one of my friends cars up with popcorn.
Christine says
So I was a good two-shoes. I never did anything like that with my friends. We also lived out in a small rural community and my closest neighbors were my grandparents. I thought forking and tping were something only done in the movies. Plus my Dad was mayor and my Mom was a school bus driver so the likelyhood of getting away with something like that was pretty slim
Haley says
We used to have three big rocks in our yard to deter people from giving us lawn jobs. One day our neighbor came over very perplexed because he witnessed two teenaged boys stop by, pick up the rocks and then brought them back about 20 minutes later. Those two boys were my high school friends and they told me later they thought it would be funny to take them then felt bad and brought the back. Those rocks had quite the adventure that day!
Carol says
The one I remember best was a night when I and 3 boys took one of those little wire 2 foot tall folding fences and stretched it across a boulevard. Then we hid in the bushes waiting. Of course it was a cop car that ran into it sending sparks flying. We high tailed it out of there. I remember walking a few blocks away from the scene holding hands and acting smoochy with my co conspirator as a cover!
Peg says
We once filled the interior of a friend’s car with crumpled newspaper. It took a long time, both to crumple and then fill.
Charla says
Man, I wish my kids could have the freedom I did growing up. I used to seek out to meet friends at the park or go to 7-11. Bike all day and just be free.
Donna Knight says
We use to go above and beyond and also Fruit Loop the yard as well as tp. When the fruit loops get wet they color the grass. We have saran wrapped cars so you can’t get in them, porches.
Good times 🙂
Lanie says
My parents hated when our house was TP’d (and it was sorta often), so they didn’t allow me to go. However, I did participate several times without their knowledge or permission. Lol.
j s says
Wow – my parents were so strict there is no way my brother or I got out of the house to do things like this – there was a parental eye on us at all times. And I don’t even know what “forking” a lawn is!
Linda says
I’m with you! My parents were very strict, and expected us to be responsible and get our homework done, which hardly qualifies as a “prank.” So what is “forking” anyway????????/
I hope this qualifies for the TP, because this answer is full of it . Teehee
Nancy D says
In our college dorm, for a birthday surprise we short sheeted a friends bed. Then we took several pairs of her jeans and sewed the bottom of the legs shut with a needle and thread (about 4 or 5 big loose stitches so it would come out easily.)
We blew up a bunch of balloons to fill her floor and then wove a toilet paper mat across her door opening. We laughed so much while doing it. She loved it!
Emily B. says
During my daughter’ HS volleyball career, as a means of the booster club raising money in the middle of the night a flock of plastic pink flamingos would appear on your lawn. They were dressed up in clothes (top hat, pearls, scarves, vests, etc.). A plastic bag would be left on your front door handle with instructions on how to “the the flock outta here”. This would entail writing a check for an amount of your choosing, and then making a suggestion on the next volleyball team members’ house the flock should visit.
Very fun!
Jennifer says
We TPd when I was in middle/high school. Exhilarating at the time. In high school there was also a time when we were pranking each other by decorating each other’s cars. Mine was a smurf-blue be bug. Someone decided to stick Oreos to the car, which, as it turns out, removes the wax.
So that fun ended there. But we never told our parents what happened or why we needed extra supplies for school. Lol.
Kara says
Flamingo-ing for us too. At least the flamingos were re-usable!
Julie says
When I was in high school we used shaving cream to decorate the front cement area of our school. It was our lane attempt at a senior prank.
Wendy M says
I lived on a farm growing up and my parents were very strict, so I had no life outside of chores at home and going to school. Hence, no exciting adolescent stories of TPing yards to tell. 🙁 I still hope you would consider me for the giveaway anyway. Thank you. 🙂
Lynne says
I was a pretty tame kid in school – just did a bit of TP’ing, usually at pajama parties. College was different. There were a couple of “pranking” events that were part of the school’s traditions, so these were big, organized and carefully planned. We did things like move all the desks out of the classrooms, plant the silverware in the lawn outside the cafeteria, fill a stairwell with popcorn. Obviously, this was in a time before cell phones, social media and hyper-vigilant security staffs.
Jayme says
I wasn’t too adventurous as a kid now I think I missed out on something cool. I do remember doing the prank call or two asking if their refrigerator was running but *69 put a stop to that I’m old.
Paula says
Oh Mavis! I love this story! I don’t ever remember t-papering anyones house. However, where I grew up we had a custom of tick tacking around Halloween. I have never met another person outside of the area that I grew up that ever heard of tick tacking. If anyone out there has heard of it, please comment. So, tick tacking begins with the month of October and the farmer’s feed corn ready to harvest. Getting ready to tick tack first begins with waiting for dusk and sneaking into the farmer’s field to borrow some ears of corn. After you have your supply of corn. You need to shell the corn into a paper bag. I usually only shelled a night’s worth of corn at a time. It can be rough on the inside of your thumb. ( I often had blisters during tick tacking season.) Then, you meet up with a group of freinds with paper bag in hand. As a group, you each throw a handful of corn kernels onto the window of an unexpecting (or maybe expecting) neighbor. It makes a loud sound. You hide and wait to see if they come out and yell at you. A daily chore during October is always sweeping off all the corn on your porch. This goes on every night that you can get out to meet up with friends. I grew up in western PA. I don’t even know if they still do it today. I grew up in the 70’s. I moved away a long time ago.
Katy says
I’m from western PA too. In my town in the early 90s it was called “Corning” and instead of houses kids would throw the shelled corn at cars as they drove by the fields . LOTS of angry people!
Katy says
I’m not sure what possessed me but one day I saran wrapped my best friends car completely shut. We were at work and I got done early so I went into the parking lot with a giant roll of industrial plastic wrap and wrapped the whole car so that she couldn’t open the doors. I laugh about it in my head, I never told her it was me.
Cathy says
This. Is. Hilarious. And, a great reminder for me to lighten up. I’ve done my fair share of TPing as a teen. We used to write words across the lawn in TP as a calling card after the deed was done. So weird, and definitely a sign of an underdeveloped frontal lobe. Ha!
Jennifer G says
As my friends & i got older, and didn’t care so much about candy, we would carry bars of soap on Halloween and soap windows. Now that I wash my windows I can’t imagine how hard this was to get off. In the small town I live in some of the more enterprising would pull outhouses into the street and sometimes set them on fire.
Tina says
My friends and I would decorate peoples houses for Christmas, national lampoon style, but in the middle of the summer. So they would come home from vacation with their house lit up like a runway.
Kari says
I never did have the fun of TP’ing anyone as a teen. For the first time ever, though, my house was TP’d just about a year ago, probably thanks to one of my teen’s “friends.” Boy, what a mess! I think we continued to find TP for weeks afterward. Thrifty me kept wondering why they’d waste such good double-ply TP on a job like this! Although I wa quite frustrated, I did try to chalk it up to a teen right of passage.
Anissa says
Prank calls to boys our friends liked as they giggled uncontrollably in the background during our sleepover parties. Laundry soap and dye themed to holidays in the fountain in front of our neighborhood. Heart attacking our friends with nice notes cut into heart shaped on their front door for birthdays or sometimes on their lockers too. Also, wow on all the progress on your rug!!!! That is amazing in less than a day!
Lana says
We egged houses which was just not nice at all. YUCK! And real heroes could sneak into a carport when the homeowners were awake and unscrew and steal CB antennas. I was really good at that. Kids in our neighborhood snuck out at night and met in the waiting room at the laundromat. Then we just sat there gabbing. So dumb once the cops figured out we were there and started taking us home and waking up our parents.
Mary Carter says
When my #5 son was just out of high school our area had the excitement of several large crop circles in a field next to the local cemetery and no homes nearby. Well, crop circles were a huge anomaly previously with no one really knowing how they could be done but lot’s of speculation on how they could possibly be made. We saw the videos of wooden boards with rope tied to each end and people would carefully step on the board to flatten out the grain and proceed in a circular pattern. Or, of course, the alien theory on how they were made. The farmer made more money on selling t-shirts and trinkets than they did on selling their potatoes and grain that year. My son later told me it was his friends that did it and had sworn him to secrecy, little did they know he couldn’t keep secrets from me but I didn’t tell anyone ’til now. Just couldn’t keep it in any longer and some pranks are awesome! Here is the article and hoopla that surrounded the “Alien crop circles”. http://www.aliendave.com/Cropcircle_TetonIdahoParker_2002.html
Karla says
Thanks for a blast from the past! It was so fun to hear that forking yards wasn’t just a regional thing! We would TP the neighbors, move for sale signs, and fork yards, usually with forks collected from the school cafeteria. We also would buy Oreos and “Oreo” people’s cars. For especially deserving boys, we would plaster their cars with maxipads. Vaseline on the windshield wipers, saran wrap on the public toilets. We made our own fun – hopefully no one was too upset by our antics!
Amy Sexton says
In high school, my friend and I would walk around her upper-ish middle class neighborhood costumed in nun’s habits and carrying fake, plastic scythes just to see the looks on peoples’ faces. Probably couldn’t get away with that today…
Brenda says
Once in middle school, a friend & I TPed a teacher’s house. We did an awful job, his wife caught us (but didn’t tell on us) and I was so nervous that I hated the whole experience. Haha, I’d probably have more fun with it now? Nah, TP is too expensive, lol.
Stacie says
You’re never too old for pranks and we still get a kick out of pranking our friends. I have a friend that constantly messes with me; nothing malicious, but definitely something that deserves payback. I created a Craigslist ad for him for “Free goats”. The ad said something on the lines of “goats of all sizes and colors! Text or call anytime day or night”. I made sure to include pictures of lots of goats and his cell phone number. He got calls and texts all day and night from those wanting the goats. He even got some threatening calls from other goat sellers mad because he was giving away goats and they were trying to make money by selling theirs! At first, he kept thinking those people have the wrong number, but then he started inquiring where they saw the ad. He had an idea it was someone in my family, but we never admitted it at that time. We even put in the ad he spoke Spanish, so he got several calls and texts in Spanish (he doesn’t speak a word of Spanish either). We let this go for about 24 hours before removing the ad lol. I did tell him about a week later it was me and to remember that was payback for alllll of his pranks over the years!
SB says
My son wrote his Process Analysis essay in his college English 101 class on how to TP a house. As a history and military science major, it was written as if he and the ‘troops’ were staging an incursion. It was great. He got an A, and I still use it as a sample paper when I teach process analysis to my students.
Suzanne Shaw says
Late 70’s, early 80’s was my wheelhouse growing up. One of our favorite sleepover “rituals” was dialing the phone (you know, the kind attached by a cord to the WALL!!!) and prank calling random people in the phonebook (remember those??!). Silly things like “is your refrigerator running? You better go catch it!” was our ULTIMATE favorite, eliciting hours of giggles by my friends and me! Those were the days … my friend! Sue
Michele Williams says
We added an “F” to the sign on the local Art Center…
Sluggy says
We wrote and preformed a skit in high school(about when our teachers were teens). One scene the kid playing a particular teacher was suppose to sing and dance to “While Strolling In The Park One Day”(that song was published in 1884 and because we thought he was THAT old!)and we thought it would be funny if he did it with a real live duck. There was a pond with ducks near my house so 3 of us kidnapped one of the ducks from that pond and brought it to school the next day. No one but us 3 kids knew about it….no other students or faculty.
When the time came for this particular song/dance we shooed the duck on stage and at the line “I was taken by surprise by a pair of roguish eyes” the duck proceeded to flap it’s wings furiously and waddle around the stage. At that point everyone in the audience and on the stage proceeded to lose it laughing.
Our skit won the contest and the teachers were so impressed by our ingenuity and stealth that we suffered no repercussions. But if we had it would have been soooo worth it tho! 😉
Oh, and the duck was treated well while we had it and was returned to the pond right after school that day.
I am still amazed no body at the pond who saw us swipe the duck reported the ducknapping to the cops either. Image having that on your record….ducknapping.
I just wish we DID have cell phones back in 1977 when we did this because I’d love to have a record of it. lolz
Carol says
Prank calls. My friends & I would pick out random numbers from the phone book & prank call asking if certain people were home. It was so funny & fun.
Diana says
Sure enjoyed reading all of the pranks, thinking that I really didn’t do that much. Then the memories started coming back, lol. High school on up to in my late 30’s or so. One of my favorite memories is of me convincing my coworkers to help blow up balloons to fill our boss’s office for his birthday. Yes, even at work – nothing was sacred to me, lol… There were a LOT of balloons and he thought it was hilarious… fun day…
jessica says
So many great stories of Tp’s and Signing peoples yards as a teen.. in fact we talk about that at work often.. So my best story was actually like 3 years ago! Yes! in my 40’s! lol
We were at a work Christmas party and it was winding down and someone noticed one of our former co workers posted something on FB about going off for a while b/c reading everyones ” New year new me” diet posts was annoying.. LOL! So a bunch of us climbed in a trusty mini van and hit the local grocery and bought a poster board, a bunch of candy bars and reduced price produce and some plastic forks- lol
We wrote a sign and put candy bars in place of some words, we tossed the the produce on the porch for her and someone forked her yard! We also propped a six foot tall stuffed giraffe on her porch! ( It had a broken neck and was destined for the dumpster)
Needless to say that started the rounds of the giraffe.. it has been found dressed up in a safari hat and sunglasses on top of a dirt pile at a coworkers new home build, it has been found on a pool raft in a pool one morning etc… We never know when she will show up! lol
tia in boise says
I recall a girls’ slumber party where we made a bunch of prank phone calls–pretending to be someone the people knew.
My first thought on seeing the TP article was definitely: yea! free toilet paper!–hope it’s 2–ply!
Lisa P says
I did my share of TPing homes as a teen, along with some other things that were not as harmless. But by far the best memories are post-it note attacks…we covered the house, cars, porch, etc in colorful sticky notes. Our favorite “victim” happened to be one of our local police officers (we only had 2 in our small town and the other one was mean ) He was a good sport about it and we never got in trouble even though I’m sure he knew it was us.
Kelli says
In addition to toilet papering yards and forking lawns, we Oreo-ed car windows. Just pull the Oreo apart and stick!
Wendy H-L says
No real pranks as a teen. Got flamingos all over our lawn as a birthday surprise. What is forking a lawn?
Sandra Cirello says
My poor husband told me a story about how his mother would send him out early on Halloween to collect candy so that she could hand it out at there house. I thought this was such an awful thing to do!!
Sarah S. says
My sister and 2 sister-in-laws decided to have a bonding night (which was amazing). We went to the store and bought toilet paper, saran wrap, flour, and oreo’s. Then walked to my then boyfriend’s house and took out our fun on his just detailed car he was getting ready to sell. First step flour, then saran wrap, then covered all with toilet paper. I still wish cell phones were a thing then and we could have gotten a picture. The best part is we got home and realized no one had the oreo’s. Come to find out the next day we had saran wrapped the oreo’s onto the car.
Jenny Young says
So I didn’t do things like this until I was married…I was a pretty straight-laced teen. I married a true jokester & we still do these kinds of things after 32 yrs of marriage. His teenage pranks were a little more wild than his adult ones…..firecrackers, loading cigarettes, ect. (He even Vaselined the toilet seat at his grandmother’s house when he was a teenager….She sat on it in the middle of the night & kept sliding off….thinking she was having a heart attack because she couldn’t stay on.)
I guess the most fun for me that I actually did was when we saran wrapped our son’s car for his 20th birthday. He worked the night-shift so my husband & I had to get out of bed super early to get to his job before he got off work. We made a big sign that said, ‘The world’s best son works here! Happy Birthday’ & wrapped the car in the dark then hid to wait for him to come out so we could watch him. It was hilarious! And he took it like the good sport he is.
One year we changed the Dallas cowboy vanity plate on his pick up truck for a pink one with kittens.
My husband unhooked his battery cable at work then watched him as he tried to start his car then flagged down a friend, pushed his car across the parking lot & raised the hood to jump it before checking the cables. (my husband works for the same company so he watched from the office windows)
My son was born at 4:30 AM so every few years we would wake him at 4:30 on his birthday. For his 18th birthday he burst into our bedroom with a video camera & woke us up! That was pretty funny. The first year he was married, he & his wife came & circled our house in his truck, revving the engine & blowing the horn at 4:30 AM…we’re pretty rural so no one called the police. We told him next time he should bring breakfast. Our daughter-in-law is pretty good at giving & receiving pranks in good taste so she married into the right family.
We’ve always wanted to fork someone’s yard….we really need to do that. We’ve also stashed flamingos in friend’s yards. It’s been awhile since we pranked each other so I think we need to make a plan. A case of TP would really help us out!
Tammy says
Um…I was homeschooled. I guess I was highly unsocialized when it came to things like this. LOL
My younger sisters had a game for the computer, which made sound effects. So my sisters put together a string of sound effects and prank called my grandparents. They only had so many grandchildren so they quickly figured it out (and my grandpa thought it was hilarious).
Joyce Derhousoff Tucker says
At school, we used to glue quarters to the sidewalk. We’d laugh and laugh as our schoolmates tried to unsuccessfully to pick up the quarters…
Tammy Cianciulli says
I smiled and laughed like you, Mavis! I actually was embarrassed my son and a few of his friends didn’t know how to TP. so… being the (former teen expert on TPing) i took them out and taught them to properly throw!
The BEST memory i have as a teen of TP experiences was, learning in advance my house (with probably 20 tall pine trees) was going to be hit one weekend. We had an on-going girls v. boys TP wars… we were laying in wait for them, saw them drive PAST the house (lights off of course) and then come back and start to throw. EXCEPT one guy missed and hit the front door with a roll and we turned on all the flood lights! They scattered like rats!! My mother ran outside and grabbed a HUGE black trash bag full of TP and then ran back inside the house with it. they drove back past the house (lights off of course), parked up the street, sending one guy to collect their bag (heh, heh) he comes and looks all over and tosses his hands in the air back to the guys in the car, like “I have no clue where it went!!”. The gals used all that TP and then some to hit ALL of their houses the following weekend ! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Anna G says
It was the mid 70’s when toilet paper still came in colors. My girlfriends and I would tp houses with pink and green toilet paper. I loved being in school and over hearing conversations with ‘was it pink and green?’ Oh we were so proud of ourselves.
Late one night my Father came home and said ‘there is a gift out in the yard for you”. We had been tp’d. Never did find out who it was.
Tess Moore says
I was in my early 20’s as a youth group leader for our teens. I took 2 of “my girls” and we FILLED the youth pastors office with crumpled newspaper, the whole thing, to 6 feet deep. To the point where when he opened the door it started to come spilling out. Took us hours to do. I still have pictures of us and our black hands!!
Laura says
A friend and I did TP and fork a boy’s yard in high school- but only once! Found out later that his family was going on vacation the next morning and that slowed them down a bit. Oops!
Amelia Wright says
It Everett, WA there is a naked bonze statue on library roof patio. My 16 year old self and friends thought it was highly inappropriate to have a “naked” man at the library. So one day we put a kilt on him. He could still enjoy the breeze without offending anyone 😉 They left him dressed for a few days!
Elizabeth says
My bff and I tried speaking in French to convince the convenience store cashier we were old (and from WAY out of town) to buy Bartles and James wine coolers. Ahhhh… the 80’s. Oh, it didn’t work, btw. 😉
L Bryant says
Loved the article!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our yard was TP’d at least 30 times. It sounds crazy but it was done by friends and it was never done to be mean. My parents would make all four of us “kids” do the clean up. After a really heavy rain the rolls that got stuck in the tall pines would finally fall to the ground. My dad could not understand how “kids” could afford to do this. Several of my friends cleaned office buildings and they were told to put new rolls in all of the holders so they saved all the used rolls. Once someone’s trunk was full the friend was picked and the Friday night time to get their house TP’d was planned.
During my Senior year the Shoney Big Boy statue disappeared from in front of the restaurant (just a hint it fits in a Ford Pinto wagon, haha). We sent pictures of him celebrating all over Atlanta, Panama city, The mountains and even outside The University of GA football stadium. These were always on the school newspapers front page. We held him for hostage and asked for simple things like Senior lunches outside, the administration singing in the talent show and a shoneys catered lunch for the seniors (there were only 200 of us!!). The Big Boy was returned, anonymously after graduation and his picture with cap and gown was framed and put on display at the school and the restaurant.
Jill A says
My friend and I decided we’d skip half a day of school and walk to her house and hang out together. We wrote our own parental permission slips and then met each other outside. We hadn’t anticipated how long of a walk it was and before we had reached her house the school bus passed us.
Arbie Goodfellow says
I threw water balloons out a hotel window in lake Placid New York.
Maybe like 1- 2 only… it was scary and people shouted and it was so hard not to laugh forever!
Angela W. says
Back in the day, a boy asked me to the dance with toilet paper in the yard…spelling it out. My Dad was not happy. My Mom thought it was cute. Needless to say, I had to go out there and clean it all up! Yes, I did go to the dance with the boy – with a stern lecture from my father when he picked me up for the dance! Gosh, I was so embarrassed. He even told the boy —- I was mortified at the time, the best part was that he saved the toilet paper in huge black trash bags and made all of us kids use it. Only when the bags were gone could we go back to using the toilet paper on a roll. Uh, that story went around school like wildfire. Totally embarrassed for a good long time!
rana durham says
I did a lot of prank calling in my teen years. i remember when we called aol said that aol man was saying inapporiate thinggss on our screen. the people would look all day for it .
Nancy Sadewater says
Great topic, I have laughed like crazy remembering some fun pranks. Thanks for bring it up Mavis. Keep up the good work all you pranksters- the world needs more laughter.
Lisa says
Yep, TP’d some yards in my high school days!
Laura says
I took my daughter and her friends out to TP her school mates houses. I think they did 3 or 4. I didn’t help I was just the driver.
Marti says
Yep, definitely TPed in my high school days. But when my kids graduated from high school, their favorite teachers went around and TP some of the graduates’ houses. Guess it was a playful payback because the teachers’ houses were TPed during the years.
Linda says
Fun memories Mavis!!! My friends & I also TP’ed each other’s yards! One night after my parents had gone to bed, my mom heard a familiar car stop outside our house. She got up & looked out the window & caught my friends in the act! She opened the window and yelled, “Get it good y’all!” It scared them so bad that they dropped the paper & took off! Thirty minutes later they came back to try again. This time she yelled, “Don’t run y’all!!! It’s about time you all get her back!!” Ha!! She stood in the window, watched them and even advised them on where they needed more! She thought it was hilarious! Btw- they later said although she was super cool about it, it sucked the fun out of it that she cheered them on & knew who did it!!! She still laughs about that story!!!!
Jen says
My sister and I played ding ditch but no one ever answered the door.
Jen says
Not a second entry but that should be “ding dong ditch” above.
Tracy says
A neighbor had a lovely in ground swimming pool. None of the neighborhood kids were ever invited to swim though. So…at least once a week, for the entire summer, one of us would dump an entire bottle of dish soap into the filtration system at night. The next morning, the soap suds would cover the surface of the pool, about a foot high, and spill out onto their grass. So there!
Lana says
Not a second entry! We used to throw a pack of black RIT dye in the pool of a whiny girl in our neighborhood.
Jill says
This is awesome!! I had the best birthday parties in middle school! One year my brother fit about 10 of us girls in his Ford EXP (like a clown car) and we TPd a friend’s house. We did an excellent job, even writing on the driveway with chalk. Apparently he had to clean up the mess and was grounded because of it. After that we made a point of TPing his house every year. Poor guy! It’s a total rite of passage, though I’m not sure how it would go over these days.
Our family dog loved hanging out with all the girls during the party and it never failed that she was given people food. When it was finally time to sleep she’d be sleeping on the floor with the girls and farting.
Another time, likely the next morning, my brother was going snowboarding with a couple of friends. They walked in to find all these girls sleeping in the middle of the living room and decided to pick on us. They ended up picking on one of my friend’s incessantly until she got so mad! The final straw was when they picked her up in her sleeping bag and and dropped her on another girl (no one got hurt by the way). It was hilarious!
Fun times!
MaryAnn Smith says
I went to a slumber party with some girls in high school. The entertainment for the night was to go TPing. It was in a rural area. We hit a couple houses with all of us running back into the car quickly afterward. I was too far on one side of the house one of the times and got left. It was frightening all by myself in a place I wasn’t familiar with. After about ten minutes (hours to me) the car came back. I never TPed again.
Candice says
When my husband was a kid, the county started road construction along the street where his childhood home was located that took months to complete. My husband set up a detour to avoid the construction but it lead you in a circle so if you were not familiar with the area, you would take the detour but end up right back where you started. Him and his friends would sit and laugh hysterically at the confusion on the driver’s faces when they realized there really was no detour needed. This went on until the county road workers finally figured out what they were doing and put a stop to it. I’ve always loved this story because who would think to do this when you are a kid? It was harmless enough but very funny.
A says
HeHe! – I went to a boarding school… One April Fools some of the boys (I actually did not participate) carried the old fashioned VW bug belonging to one of our teachers to the dining room and set it in the middle of the room!!! There was a double door to the outside and they used that to bring in the car. Only problem was they had to turn it on it’s side to get it threw the door and they turned it the wrong way and gas spilled out! So, not only had they rearranged the dining tables, they also had to clean up the gas!!! Ha! It was an hilarious surprise for all o us at breakfast!! 🙂 The same night other boys gathered a bunch of our chickens from the chicken house and climbed the fire escape and let the chickens go into the girls dorm – ugly and smelly as well as funny! 🙂
Caroline says
Prank phone calls. Lots and lots of prank phone calls. As in “is your refrigerator running?” type phone calls. You can’t get away with that these days what with caller ID!
Sue says
Took all the christmas lites off the neighbors house and put them on the mean old mans house in the neighborhood. Ran the extension cord to his neighbors and plugged it in and waited for him to come. Everyone in the neighborhood thought it was hilarious when he just stood in his driveway….. stared and yelled he is not paying for this waste of electric. Still makes me smile thing about it. Hehe
Cathy says
I drove the getaway car so my friends could steal a “for sale” sign out of someone’s yard and then plant it in another’s yard of someone they wanted to prank.
Renay says
Back in the 70’s…my friends mom wore wigs and had those heads she would leave them on. We took a head, firecrackers we had saved from 4th of July, ketchup, and clothes. We then stuffed the clothes to make a body. Then took the head, put firecrackers in it to blow a hole in (because hey, we had SAVED those firecrackers for just such a rowdy idea) stuck the head on the stuffed clothes, and poured ketchup coming out of the head IN THE MIDDLE OF OUR STREET after dark and then hid in the bushes to watch what people would do when they drove by. OMG!!! People would stop, jump out of their cars and then say ‘OH! oh, wow, good job whoever did this’ and we would giggle in the bushes. We had a neighborhood full of kids and there was always something going on. HILARIOUS!!!
Dana says
On Halloween we used to sit on top of our house and throw water balloons at the kids coming up to our porch. It really startled them. I almost fell off the roof I laughed so hard sometimes. My Sr. year some friends and I found an old toilet in the ditch and put in in the back of my truck. Late that night we left it on the front porch of a cranky teacher of ours. Instead of TPing his house we just left him the toilet. I don’t think he ever figured it out.
Barb says
Grew up in a very small town where you literally knew every person there, and I don’t remember any pranks. One of the “fun” things we did when bored was “walking the docks.” Walked the length of all the docks in a harbor off the river. Somehow kept us entertained, and sometimes someone would float their flip-flops down where the artesian well bubbled up and floated them into the main harbor. That’s about as wild as we got. 🙂
Tina A. says
Several girls in my youth group and I had fun forking the lawn of the youth pastor’s house. He took it all in stride!
Laura Brown says
We used to prank call people. This was before caller id and cell phones, but we would always call boys and hang up, or call and talk to them, but not tell them who we were. Extremely tame and boring, but we were young and it was exciting to us.
Dianne Braaksma says
We bought a bunch of maxi pads and put them all over the porch of a house of boys that we knew. We also put one on the front license plate of one of their cars and he drove around with it for about a week before someone told him!
Kate S says
We froze a friend’s bra one night at a sleepover but accidentally froze it to the side of the freezer. It took a LOT of elbow grease to get it out the next morning.
Brenda In the Midwest says
Oh my goodness, the incident that comes to mind is one Halloween night in about 1982 or 1983. My husband was a teacher in the small town (pop. 1800) where we had grown up. Every Halloween since we got married in 1979, our house would get egged. He was good friends with the police chief and told him if we had eggs thrown that night we was coming out of the house shooting his bird training pistol, it only shot blanks. Let’s just say after dark there was fire coming out of that baby while running around outside of the house. The rumor went all through the high school where he taught that he was crazy!! We never had eggs again!! And of course you sure couldn’t do that now.
Cheryl says
Showing my age when we had sleepovers we would call people using the phone book making crank calls. Boy am I old.
Susie says
My friends and I were going to TP the cutest boys house. But he loved dogs. So instead we bought a bag of dog food. Tied a toilet paper bow on it. Then using a ladder put the unopened bag of dog food in his basketball hoop. So he got a prize instead. We were never found out!
Cass says
Do you use the TP in the picture? It is AMAZING!!! I hate when I run out and have to buy it at the store to hold me over til my next Subscribe and Save box arrives. (I get one case every 3 months…cuz , no one can use a case a month by themselves. If you DO, see a doctor)
Silliest thing I did as a teen was to go outside in the middle of the night and scratch on my siblings windows. Now those windows were on the second floor…so it did involve climbing a ladder (which dad hadn’t put away yet) in the middle of the night…so actually is was pretty dangerous…but you know, TEENAGER BRAIN. My siblings were terrified to go to bed a night for a month. I just giggled behind my hand at their silliness.
Jessica Horvath says
My best friend and I would close the screen door on the sliding glass door to watch folks bump into it while on their way to the keg at a house party in college. Nothing beats watching people bounce of the screen. We are still entertained 25 years later!
Lindsey says
This is so stupid I can hardly stand to think about it. We had a high school teacher who made it clear he did not think girls were mechanically inclined. We knew he liked to go to this bar for drinks on Fridays after school (when you live in a tiny town, you know everything!). Four of us girls got together and took off his driver and passenger side doors and put them in the back of his pickup. Apparently he came out and never saw them in the back and told anyone who would listen how he would kill whoever did it because he had had to drive home seat belted in, wind howling through the front seat. He never did figure out we did it because, for once, we kept our mouths shut since we were afraid of being expelled.
Chris says
High school – senior year – one of our guy friends turned 18. We thought it would be hilarious to fill his locker with “balloons” as in condoms blown up as balloons. We were mortified at having to purchase them at the drug store, but we persevered. The best part of the prank was the warm spring weather. The teachers opened up the outside doors at the ends of the hallways since it was so nice that day, A lovely spring breeze was blowing in the hallway just as he opened his locker…yes, the balloons floated everywhere…epic.
Robin Martin says
One summer a friend and I dropped an entire dozen eggs into someone’s pool, they of course sink, so they are at the bottom of the pool. I don’t know if they were found and removed before they were stepped on and broken… If no I imagine it made quite a mess.
We were 13 I think, and at the time though it was uproariously amusing.
Becky Agne says
when we were preteen we hid and threw eggs at passing cars, almost got caught… am sorry now, now i know it will hurt a cars paint..
Sherry says
We once had our house tp’d, my teenage kids thought I was crazy but I picked up all the usable tp, put it in large paper bags and we used that tp. No waste in our family.
Deb says
HI Mavis! TPing was certainly a thing we did often growing up, but by the time I was a junior in high school we were bored with it. Living in a college town we wanted to go to the campus and “get noticed” by college guys. So, my one friend had a convertible car and she would drive, with the top down and someone else rode in the passenger seat. Two of us would be in the back seat. One laid down with their feet dangling over the window area and their torso and head on the seat bottom. The other would sit on the other side with their back to the window and their legs on the seat. It made that person look like they were so tall they could dangle their legs out the other side of the car. To make it even funnier, we found a blow up hat that was huge and the person sitting up would wear that to ensure people would look our way. Of course, the laughter and the honking we did turned heads to see what we called “long person” drive by the frat row. We were seen, but never really met any college boys that way, but we sure had good, clean fun! Thanks for taking me down memory lane!
Rynda Gregory says
In high school, I think we were juniors, my friend and I offered to take care of another friends house when they were gone for a few weeks over summer. This friend’s parents had a big yard – I mean big – like a third of an acre. Anyway, one of the chores they gave us was to mow the lawn. We left a message for our friend when she returned…. we mowed a smilie face and the word “fun” in the lawn. Her parents acted so offended when they called us to pay us for caring for their home. They made comments about how the neighbors would have to look at this terrible view….yada, yada. We found out from our friend later that her parents thought it was hilarious and purposely stressed us out because they knew how badly we would feel about their reaction. We mowed their lawn for the entire summer. We were such suckers. 🙂 . We have laughed about that for decades. Ahh.. the 80’s . we thought we were so clever.
Cheers –
Jamie says
We took a friend into the woods at night to go “snipe” hunting. It involved a lot of clapping and loud noise to find a snipe and then ditched them in the woods by them self. Sounds mean but still makes me laugh and we are still friends!!
Vicki in Birmingham says
In my callowed youth, my friends dad was a police officer and we always teased each other about doing this and that…all innocent enough. So when Halloween rolled around, rather than rolling their yard, we totally covered his car with the tp. Luckily there were no emergency calls! We were delighted at not being caught at a police officers house, although I don’t know how we weren’t since we were giggling the whole time. It was fun and we didn’t make a huge mess for them to have to clean up.
Leslie Funderburk says
My boyfriend got mad at me and sent 5 hearses to my home to “pick up the body”. They all drove up at the same time early on a Saturday morning. I thought it was hilarious, the neighbors were shocked.
Lisa Richardson says
We lived across from a high-end development, where the homes were quite expensive. The development has a large fountain at the entrance, and we would ride out bikes after dark and “soap” the fountain. This was way before everyone had security cameras everywhere.
dawnelle says
This post totally made me laugh. And the comments! I did nothing, very boring/cautious teen but I loved reading these!!! And please enter me even though I am boring!
Tracy says
Tping was such a rite of passage for me too. I grew up in Southern California. We had neighbors the next street behind us that we camped (rv style) with in the summers. We didn’t have tow vehicles (boats were the towed of choice) whatever we packed needed to be used within said rv like toilet paper. One trip, we girls decided to tp our neighbors camper but had to get toilet paper from the restrooms at the campground. They were the kind that locked the roll into the fixture. We spent hours and days pulling tp out of those rest rooms then would put it into our pillowcases until we had enough to pull the job. The dad came out of their rv first that morning, couldn’t believe we tped the camper. Their house was regularly tped by us too. We also used to put Babe Ruth candy bars (unwrapped for effect) in their pool. Little brown peanut turds floating. We had so much fun as teenagers.
Katie says
I totally forked peoples yards in HS with my friends as well! Ha ha One night we found pig ears for sale at Winco and put those all over a friends yard….we thought it was so funny. Oh the things we did in HS
Alice says
We were trying to throw water balloons at my neighbor, Shelly. Some of the kids got very excited and unloaded on her when she came outside……..only problem was, it was her mother. She didn’t get mad. She thought it was funny and was happy to be mistaken for her teenage daughter.
Sherry in Sumner says
I wrote this out once and it disappeared. I don’t think it got sent, so I hope this is not a duplicate.
In about the 6th grade, close to school being out for the summer. Glenn, a classmate, mentioned that he and his family were leaving for vacation that weekend. He lived 4 or 5 blocks away but I knew which house was his. I had the bright idea for my neighborhood “gang” (we’re talking the early 1960’s) to TP Glenn’s house that Saturday night. It was close to summer and we all slept out in one or the other’s backyards most weekends anyway, so we knew we could leave and not be missed.
But how to get all that toilet paper? We decided on a scavenger hunt. There were five of us and we split into two teams, and early Saturday evening we went around to unsuspected homeowners with a list of little things we needed for the hunt, one being a roll of toilet paper. We lucked out and got several rolls.
About 11 p.m., armed with our TP rolls, we walked to Glenn’s house. Sure enough, the house was all dark. In fact, the whole neighborhood was dark so we really lucked out. We kept as quiet as we could but had a blast hurling those rolls of TP up into the trees and around the bushes. Glenn’s place looked great!!!
Well, just because a neighborhood is dark doesn’t mean that everyone is asleep. Just as we were finishing up, two police cars cruised up and caught us red-handed! I think we all said “run!” but then we didn’t. The police put us into the back seats of their cars and cruised us on home to our parents. I guess I must have watched too many episodes of Dragnet back then because I just remember asking the cop if this was going to go on my record! He said no, so I felt a little better — right up until he walked me up to my front porch and my parents got up and came out. I was immediately sent to bed.
The next morning all us five perps had to go back to Glenn’s house and clean up all that TP. Then we were all grounded for a week. That was tough because there’s nothing like an Albuquerque summer night and we didn’t want to be cooped up inside. But I did pay my dues and that ended my life of crime.
Lynn says
During the middle of the week back when the movie ‘The Exorcist’ came out, our unsuspecting friend Diane went on a date with her boyfriend. This was back in the days of dorm curfews. So we knew she would be back by 11. My friends and I moved every possession plus the college provided bed into the group bathroom and staged it to look like a scene from The Exorcist. She eventually forgave us! Lol!
Bobbie says
One time in college, a hallmate of mine released a bag of crickets in my room. As revenge, I turned his bed into a baby chick brooder, complete with pine shavings, lamp, and 4 baby chicks. I learned two things from this: 1, have a plan for where the chicks will go after the prank is over (they ended up at a friend’s farm, so all was well), and 2- my friend was very attached to his comforter set. My original plan was to capture a goose and let it free in his room in the middle of the night while he was sleeping. But, thankfully, catching geese is illegal, so that stopped me. Kids are so dumb
Sue says
We Saran wrapped a car using purple Saran!! It was awesome!
Katelyn says
We never did great pranks as teens, but we had our own kind of fun at some co-ed sleepover parties. We would play “fashion show” where all the boys and girls would swap clothes and then act like the person (who they swapped with) for a while, we all would be rolling with laughter. There were also competitions of who could actually finish a drink mixed by someone else. Even though these were not alcoholic drinks, they packed a punch. An 8-oz glass, filled with water and a WHOLE PACKET of kool-aid or lemonade mix that was made for a pitcher of water! The person who drank the most of the concoction got bragging rights… and an epic sugar high.
We also once choreographed a dance number and performed for a pizza delivery man before we paid for/ took the pizza… which didn’t go so well. He was not amused and tried to leave so that got cut short when we had to chase him down!
Stacy says
LOL! thanks for brightening my day — Have an awesome one yourself!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks says
My story isn’t about what I did as a teen because I always walked the straight and narrow, but rather about being the recipient of a TP prank. My husband was the (well loved) principal at a large high school in the mid 90s and toilet papering of one’s yard was an honor. As graduation approached one year, we awoke one morning to find large black trash bags full of unused toilet paper in our side yard. We were curious until my neighbor’s daughter solved the mystery. She had come home late from a date and saw students in our yard. When she said something to them, they ran, leaving the toilet paper behind. We had probably 200 rolls of free toilet paper! But, not to be deterred, the toilet paper caper continued.
The next weekend, early Sunday morning, my husband heard sounds in the yard. He could see students, dressed in black, “mobilizing” in our yard. He went outside, down a back stairway and came upon the students, unknown to them. They were busy toilet papering the yard, the trees, the bushes, etc while the current student body president was filming the entire escapade. My husband waited a few minutes, taking in the entire scene then made his presence known! They about freaked out! However, we were totally amused and they busied themselves cleaning up while I fixed them breakfast.
Then we learned of a back story. When the teens went to purchase the toilet paper, the cashier was suspicious of these boys dressed in black buying up all of the toilet paper. She summoned the police officer at the store who questioned the boys. They confessed and said they were going to TP their principal’s yard. The police officer, who knew my husband, chuckled and said for them to carry on! My husband did get the last laugh when he added a square of toilet paper inside the diplomas he handed to the students involved at graduation while mentioning the caper in his speech as well. He and I have had a great time this morning reliving this sweet memory Mavis. Thanks for the memory jog!
Marissa Wussler says
This is so much fun! I’m pretty boring and just did the house tp-ing. Also calling boys over and over again when friends spent the night (until one got caller ID ).
Jennifer says
Looking back, this was so lame, but on a Friday night, it was THE most fun I could think of in 1984. My bestie and I would go to WM and both of us would grab a grocery cart and go “shopping”. We would load these buggies up and leave them. Yes, that’s all we did. We didn’t get cold or frozen stuff – my mama would whip my butt if she ever found out I wasted food – just canned stuff and boxed stuff.
We would leave before anyone found them, so I’m still unsure what the point was.
Linda says
Maybe not teen but more like tween, myself, my sister and some neighborhood kids that lived on my block would have water gun fights. We had those big Nerf water guns and would run around often times through people’s backyards trying to catch each other. We’d run back to our individual homes to reload and go back out. We’d be out for hours. Sometimes we would hide behind a bush or house or whatever and randomly shoot people walking or jogging with the water guns. Just a coupon quick sprays and then we’d take off. We thought it was hilarious at the time. We did it daily during the Summer months.
Suzy says
So many fun memories! We used to popcorn people’s doors. Tape newspapers to the outside of the doors, fill the gap with popcorn, then they open the doors, whoosh! I also have a happy memory of my bil trying to get into his short-sheeted bed, and not understanding what had happened. We may need to bring back the pranks in our family!
Staci says
Thanks for the fun post and walk down memory lane! My friends group was into the traditional gags – prank calls (oh, the days before caller ID), toilet paper, and throwing corn kernels at cars in the middle of the night (getting caught! and then my parents sharing the tales of their own escapades). I also enjoyed standing on opposite sides of the road from my friends and pantomiming stretching a rope across the road just to see who would actually slow down. Silly, but good fun!
Christy says
on a Halloween night in our Senior year, we drove around in the bed of a pick-up truck with bottles of syrup and tried to squirt it on people/cars of people we knew. I think I was covered in syrup more than anything else!
Gina says
Did anyone mention squirting ketchup onto maxi pads and stringing them in trees, sticking them on car windows, sticking them on front doors, maybe even on the school marquee sign? Anyone? Buehler……..Buehler……..LOL! So terrible but I might know something about doing this MANY years ago, childish, smh!
Michele Palmer says
I did!! I stuck maxi pads to our High School principals car. So dumb…but I bet he got a chuckle that next morning.
Geunita Ringold says
I did it in college (small school) to the president’s house. My kids both did it. There was that thrill of not getting caught.
Tina says
I confess that I TP’ed yards when I was high school but probably the most memorable time was when one of my friends had been dating the juvenile court judge’s son of our county and had recently broken up. She was a little angry so about 6-8 girls helped her roll the judge’s yard. AND IT LOOKED NICE!!!!
Linda says
Hi I got caught….bummer, as my mom was not happy! It was my birthday sleepover and we had snuck out the basement door too soon…must’ve been overly excited to get the job done! Bahahaha….oh well the neighbor called my mom and said your kids are T’P’ing my home, to which my mom replied oh no not my girls….only to open up the top door to the basement and catch us coming back in! Well she split us all up in different bedrooms…I got to sleep in the living room alone The only good thing was it snowed overnight so no clean up.
Debi says
We use to get garter snakes, put them on porches, ring the doorbell and hightail it out of there. We’d wait for the screams to come.
Sherry in Sumner says
Mavis, I just wanted to say that you have given me a few days of great laughs while reading your other readers’ pranks. I sit in my chair giggling and my husband just looks at me funny. Tomorrow I’ll let him read some of them too. Thanks for a great post to bring everyone together for some stories of harmless fun!
Holly says
My older (and only brother) convinced me to do something with him ….though I just sat next to him.
If you remember, the night before Halloween was called Goosey night or Mischief Night. This is not only were a house could get toilet papered, but where egg throwing was a big deal (where I grew up in New Jersey.)
Of course getting eggs off the house was a nightmare because the egg yolks and whites acted like glue.
So my brother convinced me that we were going to climb up on the roof with a hose, and hose down anybody who would attack our house. The only problem was this was actually on Halloween when many people and children were out crossing the street from home to home on the street.
I guess he or I didn’t think this through very well, because we really wouldn’t have known how bad our house had been egged or toilet-papered, until Halloween morning when we woke up after all the Mayhem.
I remember sitting on the roof and him having the hose ready to go ….and I think we did hose down a few poor kids in their costumes!
Remember Halloween is October 31st and in New Jersey it can be pretty darn cold at that point. I’m not sure how long this lasted that nite….
I think either we got afraid, or we thought if tye kids were, wet they would get sick and die — or perhaps we would roll off the roof ourselves!!
Ahhhh….the olde dayz!!!
Tami Lewis says
I may not have been the queen but I did my share of tping houses!
Louise in Florida says
I remember once at a slumber party ( age 13/14 ) we went down to the church at 2am and rang the church bell several good pulls, and pre-caller id days prank calling people to see if they had prince albert in a can….if so let him out….or was their refrigerator running….better go catch it.
but then in later years when I had supposedly matured I did refuse to sell a shopping cart full of toilet paper and 6 dozen eggs to a bunch of teens at midnight…..the TP I was ok with but not the eggs they damage car paint.
Delores says
I never TPed a house, but we did a Chinese Fire Drill. In all honesty, given today’s attitudes, I didn’t even want to call it that because I don’t want someone to be offended by the name! But that is what we called it, and I am not sure if it has been renamed. Or if teens still do it!
There were 4 of us teen girls out one Friday, on our way to a restaurant, or something. And we all got out and ran around at the red light. It was great fun!!!
Dawn Stribling says
Nothing too serious, just using three way with one person on mute so you could find out if they liked you lol
Kayla says
The boys that I gave a ride to school everyday had a dad who loved his car. We joked that he loved it more than his kids. So, early one cold morning, I covered all the windows of his car with shaving cream and put oreos under all the door handles. He somehow found out, and got the spare keys from my parents and filled my car a foot deep with packing peanuts. Game on my friend. Good times…
Amanda Whitley says
we use to ding dong ditch the neighbors but we knew them so i think it was pretty harmless.
OregonGuest says
Fork the lawn? Yeah, baby! That usually required more people at the sleepover, though (forking is pretty labor intensive). In addition to the toilet paper, I may or may not have sprayed shaving cream into mailboxes and put a for-sale sign at the Mormon temple. Uh-oh! Thinking back on it all now, I’m surprised I didn’t get arrested.
Torry says
Kids in our city paint a huge rock that is near the freeway. Lots of traffic to see what you’ve done. (And sometimes, adults paint it after their 30th class reunion. Just saying.)
And I read everyone’s comments and still do not know what “forking” a lawn means. Someone please explain.
ronda says
Plastic forks in the lawn, much more labor intensive but much more pride in a job well done.
Jody Leason says
My friends and I thought we were so clever when we pranked the high school librarian, who had a reputation of being a crabby pants towards all the kids. We had a fruit fly experiment going on in Advanced Biology. So, in all our wisdom, we gathered up all the fruit flies we had in little files and put them in Mrs. Q’s desk drawer with the covers off. Who know if this had the effect we were hoping for: she would open her drawer and millions of fruit flies would swarm around her. So dumb. So funny thinking back on the whole scheme!
Mellie says
We never TP’d houses but we did throw eggs at the school bus. To our surprise the bus driver stopped the bus and while we ran away he took our bikes. We had to spend an entire Saturday washing the school bus, inside and out, with toothbrushes while being supervised by the school principal and our parents. Lesson learned. When fleeing the scene of the egg throwing crime, take your bikes with you.
Ronda says
Yep, TPing and forking was always a badge of honor and you knew you were loved by our group of friends. The best was the time that we got clothes line and strung up all the lawn furniture on the top of the front porch so it was just floating there for all to see.
Joyce says
One time during election season a friend and I gathered up all of the signs we could find and put them ALL in one yard. I had a crush on the boy who lived there. this was the VERY early 80’s. The yard was full! It was great!
manda shank says
Not sure how harmless, but my friend was moving so she superglued a few locks of people she wasn’t so fond of. People debated who did year it.
Idaho Girl says
We have 2 teenage boys. Recently we had 8 uncooked eggs lined up at the end of our somewhat long driveway. About a week later, there were a hundred golf balls out there. Last week there was a watermelon, cut in half, wrapped in plastic wrap and covered in silly string. I’m thinking it’s a girl (or two) who have crushes on our cute boys! I’d love to find out who’s doing this – curious mind. I’m just glad nothing has been damaged or made a mess of. It reminds me of the sneaky things I once did as a teen! Oh the fun my sisters and I had!
Idaho Girl says
BTW – my boys are clueless as to who is doing this (or so they say) and act like they could care less!
Karen K says
My pals and I would put Vaseline all over car door handles besides the crazy TP job all over their yard. Super fun!