Category Archives: Pranks

Cushman Practical Joke (Jacob Cruger)

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Title: Cushman Cart Prank

General Information About this Item:

  • Legend, workplace folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Informant #3
  • Date Collected: 2/20/2018

Informant Data:

  • FO+M worker, started working for the college over 30 years ago. Has worked in multiple FO+M divisions. Originally from the Upper Valley, the child of a former FO+M employee who shared this story with him.

Contextual Data:

  • The informant’s father worked at FO+M before and during part of the informant’s career and shared this story with him. One piece of equipment the informant’s father used was a Cushman, a type small car designed for use in the workplace (see here for examples).

Item:

  • Students, upon seeing an unattended Cushman, would place it somewhere inaccessible, e.g. at the top of a flight of stairs. The informant’s father would then come out of the building to find his Cushman was missing, observed by the students. They would typically then help him move it somewhere it could be used again.

Transcript:

  • “My father had what they call a little Cushman, it’s like a little teeny car… you don’t see them around here but a little Cushman type thing. And he was forever coming out of a building and finding it, like once he found it up on Baker steps, people picked it up. But they’d always be sitting off to the side to take it down for him. He found it on top of a dumpster one time.”

Collector’s Comments: 

This piece reminds me of descriptions I’ve heard of similar pranks. For example, a coach of mine in high school had his athletes move his car to a neighboring parking lot. This practical joke seems to typically be done in good spirit, with an emphasis on not destroying the vehicle.

Collector’s Name: Jacob Cruger

Tags/Keywords:

  • Practical joke, practical jokes
  • FO+M

 

Image Credit: Cushman Website

First-Aid Kit

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Title: First-Aid Kit

Informant info: Informant Name: Michael Colon, Location: Hanover, NH, Date: 5/19/16, Dartmouth Student, male, Class of 2018, went on Hiking 1 trip and led Hiking 3 trip

Type of lore: Customary (prank)

Language: English

Country of Origin: U.S.

Social / Cultural Context:  Performed and experienced during the actual trip phase of first-year trips, generally in the wilderness with your fellow trippees and trip-leaders.

Transcript: Another classic prank is the fake first-aid kit. So what we did was have a package labeled “first-aid” that actually consisted of a package of Oreos. So one evening while we were just sort of chilling around the campsite my co-leader pretended to twist her ankle and made a big show of how much pain she was in and called out for someone to get an ace bandage and splint from the first-aid kit. This kid ran to get it and when he opened it there were just Oreos and he kind of just froze, really confused and said, “what the hell is this?!” and then my co-leader got up and we all had a pretty good laugh.

So, again, how did you come up with this prank?

Same as the Ground fruit, it’s something that was done to my trip and tends to be done to most trips. It’s just sort of an established tradition within the trips/Dartmouth community.

Informant’s comments:  I would say essentially the same thing as for the Canadian Groundfruit prank

Collector’s comments:  See overall comments on trips pranks.

Tags/Keywords:  Prank, First-Aid Kit, trips, customary

 

Robert Frost’s Ashes

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Title: Robert Frost’s Ashes

Informant info: Informant Name: James Thompson, Location: Hanover, NH, Date: 5/16/16, Dartmouth student, male, Class of 2017, went on Cabin Camping Trip

Type of lore: Customary (Prank)

Language: English

Country of Origin: U.S.

Social / Cultural Context: Experienced during the actual trip phase of first-year trips, generally in the wilderness with those on your trip.

Transcript: One of the pranks I remember being pulled on us by my trip-leaders was the one with Robert Frost’s ashes. Basically they showed us a little baggie of blackish greyish powder and convinced us that it was a bit of Robert Frost’s ashes and that per his wishes we were to scatter them in the woods of New Hampshire. They were very serious about it and I think they had a lot of us on the hook. So we went down to the river and had a whole moment of silence and everything, and when one of my trip leaders is about to scatter the ashes he just throws them in his mouth and eats them! It was quite startling, but pretty funny. It turns out it was just ground pepper in the baggie.

Informant’s comments:  I’m not sure what the purpose of the prank was, I think they just wanted to mess with us, but maybe is sort of helped us bond because we were all sort of taken advantage of together.

Collector’s comments:  See overall comments on trips pranks

Tags/Keywords: prank, Robert Frost, Ashes, Customary, trips,

 

Canadian Ground Fruit

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Title: Canadian Ground Fruit

Informant info: Informant Name: Michael Colon, Location: Hanover, NH, Date: 5/19/16, Dartmouth Student, male, Class of 2018, went on Hiking 1 trip and led Hiking 3 trip

Type of lore: Customary (Prank)

Language: English

Country of Origin: U.S.

Social / Cultural Context:  Experienced during actual trip phase of first-year trips, generally in the wilderness with those on your trip.

Transcript: A classic prank to pull on your trippees is the “Canadian Groundfruit” prank. So the way my co-leader and I did it was we stopped to rest at a spot on the trail where we knew there was a slight bend coming up and my co-leader had the pineapple in her bag so she went ahead around the bend while the rest of us stayed put and she buried the pineapple in the ground along the path that we were going to take. We had told out trippees that you could recognize the fruit by the distinctive green leaves sticking up from the ground. So when she came back she told me where she had hid it and when we continued on our hike and we got the spot I stopped and was like “Oh wow, look I think that’s a Canadian ground fruit!” and we dug it up and cut it open and started eating it. There was this one kid from Maine who just didn’t buy it at all from the get go, he was like, “that is 100% a pineapple” and I kept trying to convince them otherwise, telling them they would feel really dumb when we got back and could look it up. I mean it is pretty obviously a pineapple, especially when you start cutting it open and eating it, but I stuck to my guns and kept telling them that I didn’t have service so I couldn’t look it up, but when I did they would feel really stupid. So eventually on the bus back to Hanover, I was half sleeping and they all woke me up and were like “you definitely have service now, look it up!” and I just said, “Why would I look it up, it’s obviously a pineapple.”

How did you learn about this prank and how to pull it off?

It was pulled on me by my trip leader and is sort of just a tradition. I feel like most people are pranked like this during the latter part of their trip.  The way w

Is it always a pineapple?

I’ve never heard of it being done with any other fruit.

Informant’s comments:  The purpose is purely recreational, we do it just to have a little fun with the trippees and maybe get a laugh/have a laugh at their expense.  I suppose it helps with bonding, giving them a common experience to share in the future.

Collector’s comments: See overall comments on trips pranks

Tags/Keywords:  Prank, Canadian Ground Fruit, Trips, Customary

 

Lodj Dinner

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Title: Lodj Dinner

Informant info: Informant Name: James Thompson, Location: Hanover, NH, Date: 5/16/16 Dartmouth student, male, Class of 2017, went on Cabin Camping Trip

Type of lore: Customary (Prank & Songs/Dances)

Language: English

Country of Origin: U.S.

Social / Cultural Context:  Experienced at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge during the latter part of first-year trips

Transcript: I remember the lodj dinner was a pretty big event. When they led us into the lodj and it was completely pitch black. They told us that the power was out and that we would have to hold on to each other’s shoulders to help guide us to our seats. I totally fell for it, for some reason I didn’t think of the fact that a cabin probably had windows which would let in light, which they had covered to make sure it was completely dark. So we all went in, cha-cha style, holding each others shoulders until we were in our seats in the dining hall. At that point the all the lights suddenly came on and there were a bunch of people dressed up in flair all over the place, some were literally standing on ledged above us and hanging on poles and stuff and they all broke into a song and dance performance. It was pretty incredible to be honest. The whole meal followed a similar theme. Each course was presented and served to us as part of an elaborate song and dance routine, even the clean up process was a song. That was really a great time.

Informant’s comments:  i’m not really sure what the point of it was other than to have some fun and entertain us.  That’s basically it.

Collector’s comments:  See overall comments on trips pranks

Tags/Keywords: Lodj, Moosilauke, Dinner, trips, song, dance, prank

 

Safety Talk

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Title: Safety Talk

Informant info: Alfredo Gurmendi, Location: Hanover, NH, Date: 5/20/16, Dartmouth Student, male, Class of 2018, went on Hiking 2 trip

Type of lore: Customary/Verbal (Prank)

Language: English

Country of Origin: U.S.

Social / Cultural Context: Experienced during First-year trips, on the campus of Dartmouth College in Sarner Underground before leaving on actual trip

Transcript: After everyone gets checked in in front of Robo and we are led by the H-Croo members in dances and songs and do some ice-breakers with our group, we were told by our trip leaders that there will be a safety talk and are then led to Sarner Underground. Our trip leaders tell us that there will be a quiz based on the material covered in the safety talk and that we won’t be allowed to go on the trip unless we pass it. Once we get to the little room where the talk is going to be held, we all sit down and a couple of upper classmen come on stage and begin to tell us how important it is that we pay attention to the following talk because it may save our lives. They begin talking in a very serious and matter of fact manner about things like splints and first-aid stuff and some kids are actually sitting there taking notes to make sure they don’t fail the quiz. Suddenly, however, the people on stage break into song and dance and a full-length performance follows including a bunch of parody versions of popular songs, including a version of the “Frozen” song about going to bathroom in the woods. The show closed with the Dartmouth version of “Welcome Home” and a full-fledged dance party ensues at the end of the performance. It was a brilliant prank that definitely set the tone for the whole trips experience. Here we are, a bunch of kids that have no clue what to expect from this new place, ready to believe anything we are told and absolutely terrified of failure, so of course we’ll totally buy into the idea of a mandatory quiz. But then the complete reversal really breaks the ice and makes you feel more comfortable in this new community.

Informant’s comments: It really breaks the ice and makes you feel more comfortable in this new community

Collector’s comments: See overall comments on trips pranks

Tags/Keywords: Trips, Prank, Safety Talk, Verbal, Customary