This is one of those things that "seemed like a good idea at the time" even though it is probably the worst idea that anyone could ever come up with. Fortunately no one was injured or killed, but holy shit, this is the dumbest thing I have ever done.

The Date = Late 80s

The Mark = Lindy

The Pranksters = Sam, Max and myself

The Ruse = To scare Lindy by faking a slasher movie style home invasion. What could go wrong?

Note: We were all in high school at this point. I was the youngest (a freshman), Sam and Max (seniors), and Lindy (a junior) ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

My friend Sam came up with this idea to scare our other friend Lindy one night. Lindy lived in a huge house overlooking the rest of the town that we lived in. Her parents are rich and they would often leave here alone. Sam and Lindy have been friends since kindergarten. When her parents were out of town Sam would hang out with her. They would cook diner and watch movies.

So Sam knew Lindy's parents were out of town and they had planned on doing one of their dinner/movie nights. He recruited myself and our good friend Max to come up to the house at a specific time and scare them. His plan was that he would go take the phone off the hook in one of the spare bedrooms, so that no one would be able to call out. Then he would unlock the back door by the mud room which led into the kitchen. Then we were to freak them out while they were doing dishes.

So Max and I gear up. I was Jason Voorhees for Halloween the previous year so I had a set of gnarly looking coveralls, a hockey mask, and a machete. Max Just had some black clothes and a latex Yoda Halloween mask. We grabbed our shit and headed up to the house. We parked 1/4 mile away and walked so as to not alert them. We made it into the back yard and donned our gear. We thought it might work better if she thought there was only one of us, so we decided to have only one of us visible at a time.

We Peered into the kitchen window and saw Lindy rinsing some dishes off in the sink. She did not see us.

We took turns trying to subtly get her attention. We moved closer. And closer. Still no reaction.

We got to the point where I was standing directly in front of the window, hockey mask and all, starring directly at her and she still couldn't see me. So I tapped on the glass with the machete.

A scream and panic. She backed off and ran down the hallway toward her room. Sam, acting incredulous, asked her what was wrong. She screamed back that there was someone out there wearing a mask. Sam followed her to her room.

I looked at Max an we decided to try the mudroom door. It was unlocked.

We waited a few minutes and then entered the house and thought about our next move. We set up a bit of a homebase in the guestroom at the back of the house, where we could discuss. We thought it would be scary if they knew that we were in the house. We found some laundry in the utility room and balled up a few socks. We would periodically throw a sock ball at her bedroom door.

Thump Scream!

Wait a minute or two...

Thump Scream!

We did this for -- I'm not sure how long.10 minutes or so.

Then I thought it would really be scary if we shook the knob on her door. Max stayed back at the homebase as I approached the door. As I came within a few feet of her door I could hear her frantically talking on the phone to someone. Sam was trying to calm her down. After listening for a minute I gathered that she had called her best friend, Sarah. Oh shit! That wasn't supposed to happen.

The problem, I was quickly beginning to realize, was that we had never really established a definitive end game for our little scenario. I mean Sam had said that at some point he would give Lindy the "Smile, you're on Candid Camera" routine. He seemed to not be doing that. I think that he was too scared of the reaction it would cause. Now that Lindy had somehow managed to get through to someone, the situation was a bit more complicated. As I was about to make my way back to homebase to tell Max what I had learned, I heard Sam shout "SARA'S MOM IS ON HER WAY UP HERE RIGHT NOW?! GOOD! I HOPE WHOEVER THOSE GUYS ARE JUST LEAVE BEFORE SHE GETS HERE!" We needed to get the fuck out of that house. ASAP.

Problem was, Sara's mom had left couple of minutes minutes before I had even approached the door. By the time I made it to the living room I noticed a car on the way up. Oh shit I ran into the homebase and told Max what was up. While I was explaining, we heard the front door open.

Enter Mrs. Erickson. Mrs. Erickson, in addition to being Sara's mother was a teacher at the junior high. She was in fact, my teacher for several classes. She liked me a lot. I was an honor student. My mother was a teacher. My mother is a friend of Mrs. Erickson. This was bad! This was so bad!

Sam and Lindy ran out to the living room when they heard the front door open. Max and I were stuck in that back bedroom The only means of egress were past the living room. Past them.

Lindy was crying and just wanted to GTFO but Mrs. Erickson insisted on checking the house. Well that's just perfect!

Here is where I note that at the time of this little event I was about 6'3" and 260 pounds. Max was 6'1" and a very slender 160 pounds.

Max looked at me and whisper/screamed, "We have to hide!" In one swift motion he jumped inside a large laundry hamper, squatted down and closed the lid. Completely hidden. Watching him do that so effortlessly made me hate him, for a brief moment, as much as I have ever hated anyone. Give or take. There were assuredly not many places for ME to hide. I checked the closet. It was full of stuff. I looked under the bed. Empty but there was no way I was fitting under there. I went into the bathroom and decided that the tub/shower was my best bet. I climbed in and closed the curtain.

All I could do was wait. I was sweating profusely. My heart was beating like one of Dave Lombardo's kick drums. A torrent of anxiety was washing over me as though it were spaying out of the shower head and my ears were ringing like I had just gotten out of a concert.

I heard footsteps approaching the bedroom that we were in. The bedroom light flicked on. A pause of tedious silence. Then the footsteps continued to the bathroom.

I couldn't see her but I could hear her as she stood just inside the bathroom -- staring at the curtain. That thin, opaque sheet of plastic, with me, my mask and my machete on the other side. The moment that she took, looking at the curtain, seemed to go on for ages. In actuality it was probably just a few seconds. For whatever reason she decided not to open the shower curtain. Thank fuck!

She made her way out of the bedroom and out to the car where Sam and Lindy were waiting. Whew!

Max and I made an expedient retreat and hiked back down to his car. At some point, Sam convinced Mrs. Erickson to drop them back at his house. Once they were there, Sam finally spilled the beans about our "prank." Our prank which had morphed a sadistic mental torture session. Although honestly it was that from the moment of inception. Cooler heads prevailed and that was more or less the end of it.

I do often think of what would have happened if poor Mrs. Erickson had opened that curtain. Drawn it wide to reveal a large man in a hockey mask with a machete wearing murder clothes. The stuff of nightmares.