Fake Emergency

General Information about Item:

Customary, Practical Joke
Language: English
Country of Origin: United States
Informant: Malcolm Robinson
Date Collected: This data was collected during a one-on-one interview in the library of Dartmouth College with Malcolm Robinson on October 28^th, 2018.

Informant Data:

Malcolm Robinson ‘22 is a male student studying Russian Area Studies and Geography at Dartmouth College. He is originally from London. Malcolm participated in a canoeing trip before the start of his Freshman year at Dartmouth as part of the First Year Trips DOC program. He has 2 older brothers (Austin Robinson ‘19 and Gordon Robinson 21′), who attend Dartmouth, but Trips were his first true introduction to life as a Dartmouth student.

Contextual Data:

Social Context
Malcolm encountered this joke, which is not specific to the caneoing section of trips and is actually quite common when he was a tripee during August of 2017.
This joke is typically played by upperclassmen or students leading trips on their first-year tripees. As the objects of the prank, the new freshmen are supposed to be initiated and bonded together as a new class by going through the embarrassment of this prank together.

Cultural Context
This joke occurs on first-year trips, which close to 95% of every incoming class at Dartmouth College participates in. Trips are used as a way to welcome each new class to Dartmouth and to break down whatever misconceptions they might have. Accordingly, jokes on trips are used often as they offer a great way to subvert expectations and to make everyone have a good time. Typically, the practical joke is played once the members of the trip and the leaders have left Dartmouth’s campus and are together somewhere in the surrounding wilderness of New Hampshire/Vermont. In this way, practical jokes like this one are very common to the Trips setting as they serve to bring everyone closer together through group humiliation/embarrassment.

Item:

During First Year Trips each year, Trip leaders carry a first aid kit for an emergency. This is because the College Grant, the wilderness area where trip sections go is very isolated area several hours from the College and any serious medical care. Trip leaders inform their trippees of the importance of helping each other if one has an accident. At a certain point during the Trip, one of the leaders will pretend they are having a medical emergency. They will tell their trippes that they need to find the first aid kit and help the leader. When the trippees find the kit they will open it, where they will see a pie from Lou’s. This local eatery in Hanover, is a student favorite.

Transcript:

Gordon: Hi Malcolm, great to be with you again, as you mentioned in our last conversation your leaders played multiple pranks on you guys?
Malcolm: Yeah, so besides the Robert Frost Ashe’s they also played this other joke on us..
Gordon: Great, so could you tell me a little bit about that joke?
Malcolm: Yeah so my trip leaders were great and liked playing jokes on us. After Robert Frost’s ashes, they had another joke for us. One day while we unloading the canoe one of our leaders pretended to have an asthma attack. The other one told us to quickly find the emergency kit in their bag, while he called for help on his phone.
Gordon: What happened?
Malcolm: My friend quickly found and we all opened it. Instead of a medical kit, we saw a box from Lou’s. I looked inside and there was a cherry pie from Lou’s. We realized that it was all a joke.
Gordon: What a great joke!

Informant’s Comments:

“We were all worried for a little. When we saw the box from Lou’s, we all started to laugh. Eating the pie was great, especially after the bland food we on the trip so far.”

Collectors’ Comments:

This prank is a great way to reinforce how everybody on the trip must work together. Lou’s is also a favorite of Dartmouth students, and this is a great way to introduce people to this great local institution.

Collector’s Name: Gordon Robinson

Tags/Keywords:

Dartmouth Folklore Archive