One morning before a rain came in, we TP’d his precious sports car with 10 whole rolls. After the rain came, the TP clung to his car like paste.

Another time we stole the right side of every pair of of his shoes. It drove him nuts for a week.

One night, we went into his room (his roommate couldn’t stand him either so he always let us in) and stapled his underwear to the ceiling. It was awesome because his tighty-whiteys were seen through the window by the entire campus.

We once rigged a rope to the ceiling, so that when he opened his door, a giant water balloon swung into his face.

But he always knew it was us and once waited in ambush by our door to attack us with shaving cream. We were able to get away, which was too bad for him, because we returned the favor by writing on his window “Get your STDs here!” again, for all the campus to see.

Honestly, my teenhood has been scarred because I read about Bonsai Kittens back in 2001 and for the past 8 years I thought, call me gullible, it was a real, cruel, horrible, F-ed up thing that some sick people did. You don’t know how relieved I am right now…wheeeew. Now when I’m taking a long drive or I’m bored in school or at work, my mind won’t wander to that horrible act that I believed to be true.

I can truly sleep easy tonight.

We have a large cannon in the centre of campus that was rumoured to have been used during the War of 1812. Although it is now tradition to paint the cannon for important events, it has a long history of being part of a series of prank wars between the engineering students and the Aggies (agriculture students). In my personal favourite it was lifted in top of MacNaughten (a lecture hall) and pointed to face in the direction of the president’s house.

My personal favorite at MIT was the famous “No Knife” exhibit at a contemporary art gallery in the student center. In one corner stands an overturned trash can. Resting atop it is a lunch tray holding a single place setting minus a knife. In 1985, hackers managed to get these goods installed as a real exhibit. A gallery label read, in part, “The sterile lateralism of the grouped utensils (sans knife) conveys a sense of eternal ennui, framed within the subtle ambiance of discrete putrefaction.”

No critic of the exhibition ever realised that “No Knife” was a hack. So subtle, yet the perfect hack!

President Obama even was in on the hacking tradition when he spoke at MIT last month. He joked that he was late because the motorcade was parked on the dome. The top of the MIT dome is the usual place for lots of hacks (cop cars, R2D2, a fire engine, you name it).

(Seriously, there are so many ways that could have ended tragically!)

We girls found a dead raccoon on the side of the road, collected it, took it back to school, stored it for a few days, then when it was particularly rank smelling we got it out, dressed it up, and set it up in a beach scene on the side of the tennis court.

We got up extra early the next morning and watched all the guys have to walk past it on the way to breakfast.
Needless to say, they weren’t happy about it. It smelled awful, and the Dean was pissed. No one ever found out it was us though. My good friends still talks about how mad he was, and he had to clean it up. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was involved.

Good times, smelly, but good..