I've done some rotten things in my life, but nothing really post-worthy. My business partner Ken whom I've known since 1973, is the funniest person I know and has always enjoyed tormenting people, especially strangers. For example:
A friend of Ken's once mentioned a guy from Guyana(SP) named "Ratna" whom he worked with at a kitchen carpentry factory. For several years after, every time Ken was out of the country on business or vacation, he would send Ratna a post card addressed to his work, supposedly from Ratna's cousin "Baboo" ( this was before the Seinfeld Baboo)
One card was from Florida and featured a shot of parrots performing at a bird show ( climbing up a miniature firetruck ladder). This card read: Dear Ratna, Look. Parrots. Plump, plump parrots like the ones we used to eat at home. Speaking of parrots, Aunt Gooba has become crazy and now thinks she is a chicken. Your cousin Baboo.
Another read: Dear Ratna, the terrible things those men did to you in prison were not your fault. They were much bigger than you and very, very, lonely. Your cousin Baboo.
Over the years Ratna received at least twenty of these post cards at work. He never found out who was sending them. ( Ken and Ratna had never even met) It got to the point where when the receptionist received the mail and found a Ratna post card, she would get on the P.A. sytem and announce that Ratna has received another post card. Everyone on the factory floor would gather around while he read it. Of course Ratna never had a sense of humour about it, and all he could say while everyone was rolling on the floor was that Baboo was not a Guyaneese name.
Ken would also often phone, at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, a poor Dutch man named Mr. Doda who's only crime was to have his name listed in the phone book next to Ken's. The Doda's lived just outside of town directly across the street from a boy's reformatory. Usually Mrs. Doda would wake up and answer the phone. Ken would say "Good morning Mrs. Doda, may I speak to your husband". There would be a short pause while she woke up Mr. Doda and he would come on the phone, groggy from just waking up, and say "Hello". Ken would then explain he was from the McLauglin Rd. Police ( that was the name of Doda's street) and that there had been yet another escape from the reformatory so he should get up and check all his windows and doors. Often, before reporting the escape, Ken would first ask Mr. Doda if he knew what time it was. Mr. Doda would check his clock and reply 3:45 or 4:30 or whatever. Mr. Doda always politely thanked Ken for the escape information and we assumed, got up and checked his windows and doors.
Once, a woman at a former customer of Ken's, screwed him out of some money. She basically laughed and said she wasn't going to pay a certain invoice. Ken phoned her company and asked for her but she was out at the time. He asked the receptionist to give her a message for him. The message Ken left the woman was short. "Tell her she has the coarsest pubic hair he's ever seen." That was it. We always wondered whether or not the receptionist passed it on to her boss. Either way, the receptionist must have found it funny.
Or there was the time a salesman was fired from Ken's work. A couple of weeks later Ken received a call from a dry cleaner, asking for the salesman because he had not yet picked up his dry cleaning and it had been done for quite a while. Ken told him that the salesman had died. The cleaner asked what he should do with the salesman's 3 suits and 4 dress shirts and Ken suggested he give them to GoodWill.
About a week after that, the salesman called Ken and asked if he'd told some guy he'd died. The drycleaner had indeed given his suits/shirts to GoodWill.
We were young and stupid back then.
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