I was involved for many years with PPA Charities and we did an auction with a focus on sports memorabilia one year at the convention.  We had a putter signed by Arnold Palmer, a basketball signed by somebody in the NBA, sports images etc.   Leading the way in hot products was one of Don Blair’s 14EEE shoes, classically mounted on a solid walnut base with an engraved plaque.  I remember spending $350 of Hasselblad’s money at the time to  give this piece iconic stature.

Well, the shoe went up for bid and some crazy woman in the front of the room, who none of could see, was so excited, she twice outbid herself.  The shoe wound up going for $1100!   Palmer’s putter only went for $375!  Don Blair was all the way in the back sitting with my Dad.  “I told you I was a hot product in this industry!” he said to my Dad and they both did a high five.

The next day my Dad was with Don in the booth when his daughter Cathy cornered him and asked him to get Don’s credit card.  “There’s a shipment of books that just came for Skip and Dad.  Will you get me his credit card, so I can pay the hotel to deliver them to the booth?”

My Dad got Don’s card.  Cathy paid for the “shipment” and 30 days later Don learned that the “crazy woman” bidding on his shoe was his own daughter.  The $1100 for charity was on Don’s own credit card!

Note: Photo by Bambi Cantrell and the author shot for Body Parts

Chris Fawkes:  ” I was in Sydney and I knew my buddy Darren in Melbourne was having an easy weekend with no wedding on.   So I had a friend who he did not know call him that evening and pretend to be an upset groom demanding to know why Darren had not turned up that day to shoot his wedding.

My friend hung up after giving “D” a blast and i let him sweat it for five minutes before giving him a call. As soon as he heard my voice the penny dropped.

Dennis Pike:   A couple years ago I went to Madame Tussauds  Wax Museum with my then girlfriend, now fiance.  While there, I took a cell phone photo of me sitting next to the Ozzy Osbourn sculpture, and sent it to my sister saying “Look who I met!” she believed me and told all her friends (who happened to be big Ozzy fans) I let her believe it for about a week before I finally told her.    3 years later and she still gets mad when I bring it up!

And last but not least – there’s an interesting phenomenon with a blog.  It brings out things from your past that are totally irrelevant from people long ago…so meet Rich Fuller, one of my best friends from college and definitely responsible for numerous stunts over the years.  These guys may have nailed me with the following event years ago in a dorm room, but it would still be a good stunt to pull off in an office today! 

Long ago ( 42 years) in a place far far away (south western Ohio) our young hero Steven B went off from his college dorm room for yet another night of beer drinking and women chasing ( mostly the former). While he was gone, a group of  friends entered his room with some 5000 ft of kite string and turned his room into a spider web of gigantic proportions. Each and every item in the room was connected to every other one from at least 5 different directions. Upon his return that evening young Steven open the door to his room and came face to face with the web. He batted it with his hand and the entire room vibrated. At this point he told the gathered crowd that all he wanted to do was go to bed. ( remember the part about beer drinking)  He asked for a pair of scissors and began to cut his way in. Ten minutes later after only a few feet of progress he became frustrated and jumped into the remaining web. EVERYTHING in the room large and small crashed in on him and he became hopelessly tangled. The crew went on to do other evil deeds at young Steven’s expense, but this still remains one of the classics. Right Skip?

Come on you guys, there are so many other stories out there.   I’ve got a classic that was pulled on Don Blair years ago that I’m saving.  Anybody else got a good one to contribute?

Years ago I attended GLIP (Great Lakes Institute of Photography) as Michael Taylor’s ‘glippy’. Enjoying the ‘party’ atmosphere and feeling a little rambunctious one night myself and another glippy decided it would be a good idea to break into Ron Tocco’s room (GLIP’S Director) and steal all of his underwear. Using our highly tuned skills of breaking and entering we easily found our target and managed to escape with our booty undetected. What a great prank we had pulled!!!

We continued to slap ourselves on the backs until the next morning when I was hauled out of Michael’s class, escorted to the office to face a very serious and upset Tocco and several Board members. He explained that he had a very serious skin condition and his clothes could only be washed in a special detergent so the underwear we took could no longer be worn by him without a horrible breakout. He was forced to call his wife to take time off work and drive several hours to the school with newly washed underwear. He was so angry and I was mortified.

I left the office with tears in my eyes so embarrassed as this was my introduction to GLIP. I went all day totally freaked out and feeling miserable. It wasn’t until after dinner that it was revealed to me that the joke was on me – Ron did not have a skin condition and his wife was not on her way . . . he was just getting even with me for stealing us underwear. Paybacks are hell!!!!!!

Kay Eskridge

Tony Corbell and I were on the road in Phoenix years ago.  Monte Zucker and Al Gilbert were doing the first city on the Legends Tour and we needed to be there to represent Hasselblad that night.  We had the usual vendor table and easily $100,000 of Hasselblad gear, including some great exotic lenses.

Tony was the first Dean of Hasselblad University and wanted to shoot some new images for future programs.  So, we hired a model and spent the day shooting around Phoenix.  End of the day we returned to the hotel to get ready for the evening program.  We each headed to our rooms with the plan to meet back at the car fifteen minutes later in our “school clothes” and then head over to the hotel for the Legends program.

Well, I got to the car first, only to notice that Tony, when locking up the car left the window down.  The car had a remote switch to open the trunk in the glove compartment – we’d left all that Hasselblad gear essentially unsecured!  What can I say? The devil made me do it and the next moves involved popping the trunk and leaving one door open so the car looked like it had been broken into.

Tony was running a few minutes late, giving me plenty of time to hide behind a tree and just wait and watch.  The look on his face was total panic.  It was like watching the mercury on a thermometer fall as the blood drained out of his face…just when it was about to his chest and one step ahead of a coronary, I stepped out and said “Gotcha!”  His face was the color of a porcelin doll, but within seconds the color returned and I knew he’d live, but would I?    Tony barely spoke to me for the rest of the night!

As my daughter put it best, “Dad, you finally pulled a joke on somebody who has what it takes to get even!”  For the next three years I refused to answer the doorbell!

So, I showed you one of mine – who’s got one to contribute?   And keep them PG rated if you can!