Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Confessions Of A Creative Boy Scout

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Disclaimer: This post serves no inspiration or influential purpose. It is accurate (as best as I can recall), and strictly for entertainment purposes... Enjoy!

One of the highlights of my time as a Boy Scout during my teenage years was the summer I spent as a counselor at our council's Summer Camp.

Nine weeks of scoutcraft, teaching, leadership, and sweating in the South Florida sun.

One of the highlights of that summer was a practical joke that myself and two accomplices played on the entire camp.

My best friend Larry (who was also my cabin-mate, and Boy Scout mentor) and I were talking late one night, evaluating the past pranks of previous camp staff. It seemed that the same pranks were pulled year after year: Reversing the layout of the dining hall, moving the camp director's car to the middle of the parade ground, adding green food coloring to the camp water supply (green oatmeal for breakfast), and holding hostage the 12-gauge cannon that we used for our evening "colors" salute.

Maybe it was tradition, maybe it was a lack of creativity, but the same pranks were pulled year after year. The only thing different was the camp staff who pulled them.

As we discussed the current lack of authentic ideas for pranking, an original idea began to formulate after I made the statement, "Wouldn't it be cool if we could color the milk?"

My friend Larry - who was also in charge of the dining hall (an asset for our prank: keys to the kitchen) responded that it could be done... All we needed were syringes and red food coloring.

Syringes weren't easy to come by back then, so we enlisted then help of an adult with medical connections who secured the syringes. A trip to a restaurant supply store on our day off landed us four quarts of red food coloring, and we were ready to go.

Twice a week, 300 half-pint milk cartons were delivered to our camp by a local dairy. The milk sat in the walk-in cooler until the next morning when each camper and staff member received two cartons with their breakfast.

In the middle of the night before the breakfast with milk, Larry, the previously mentioned adult with medical connections, and myself let ourselves into the kitchen. We proceeded to fill the syringes with red food coloring, and inject each milk box with 4cc's of the colorful liquid. A quick shake and then carefully stacking the milk boxes into the crates, and our prank was ready to be unleashed.

The next morning, 140-plus campers and staff gathered in the dining hall. No food or drink was touched until everyone was present, the Boy Scout Oath was recited, and a prayer was voiced by the camp chaplain.

The usual buzz could be heard as the campers began to eat, and then the buzz turned into yells, screams, and laughter as milk cartons were opened and our pink milk was discovered.

The camp director was ready to call the dairy to complain, the other camp staff immediately saw it as a prank, and Larry and myself simply were amazed with everyone else. We never let on that we were responsible.

Years later, campers and staff alike referred to the Pink Milk Prank as the greatest of all pranks that were ever played at our Boy Scout Camp.

Question: Got any original pranks that you initiated? Share below in 'comments'.

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