Classic Post: Pranking Barry
Originally Published in Jan ‘07
One late summer Sunday afternoon back in 2006, Angie was attending a Party-Lite candle event, hosted by a friend of hers at the time, “Cassandra” . These are similar to the multi-level marketing schemes like Tupperware or sex-toy parties that women seem to love to host and attend time and time again.
Cassandra is a playful, boisterous Korean girl who casually refers to herself as the ‘Asian Sensation’. Cassandra is a co-worker of Angie’s. The two of them were reasonably good friends at the time.
Although I was invited, I decided to stay home that particular Sunday afternoon. Angie had hosted an identical party at the house earlier that summer, with same group of women that were going to be attending at Cassandra’s place that afternoon. I helped out that night by playing bartender to a houseful of girls. I gladly will partake in any social atmosphere so long as there promises to be a reasonable chance that an opportunity to be obnoxious will arise. Since I’d already played to that same crowd, I took a pass.
At about 8:00 PM that night, Angie called me from Cassandra’s place.
“We want to prank Barry. What should we do?”
This in and of itself was an abnormal request, and I found it to be quite bizarre. Of all my friends, Angie knows Barry the best, but I never thought of the two of them as more than casual acquaintances. Almost every woman that gets to know Barry adores him to some extent, unless they are a total prude. I have zero problem with this, since I know I can trust Barry, and I know how women respond to him. I was kind of intrigued that Angie actually wanted to have contact with Barry independent of my presence.
I asked Angie what she had in mind. She told me that she and Cassandra were the last two people left at the party, and that they were screwing around on Myspace. They found Barry’s page and decided that they wanted to fuck with him.
I was reluctant at first to offer advice as to how to get a rise out of him. But the more I thought about it, the more challenging it became. I had genuine difficulty trying to come up with something that he wouldn’t instantly see through and dismiss. I thought of suggested that she send Barry a seductive message anonymously, but he’d just assume it was spam and delete it without a second thought.
Then, I remembered an encounter between Barry and an Asian chick almost getting it on back in college. The story was that of “Sue”, who’d been passed around campus more times than a VHS porno tape. One night, Sue was on her knees in Barry’s room literally about to polish Barry’s knob when his neighbor in the dorms knocked on the door repeatedly. Barry got up and let him in, figuring it was his roommate. Obviously, Sue departed shortly afterward, leaving Barry blueballed and disappointed.
I suggested to Cassandra to send Barry an email over Myspace pretending to be that girl and that she wanted to finish what they started seven years ago.
I also advised her to change her name and college information among other things on her Myspace to make the story add up better, since Barry will immediately be suspicious. I specifically delayed accepting the ‘add as friend’ request that she had sent to my account in order to avoid detection.
Now just to clarify, I am not implying that all Asian people look the same. It just seemed like a plausable situation.
Angie returned home shortly afterward and I put it out of my mind.
Barry is not one to check his email or his voice messages on a regular basis, and he only seems to get on Myspace once or twice a week so I didn’t know when or even if this would go any further. The following day I was at work at about 3:00 PM when my cell phone rang. The caller-ID read “Barry”.
I wasn’t really busy at the moment, so I answered, not really sure what to expect.
“Hey dude. Whats up?”
“Hey man, you will not believe who messaged me on Myspace,” Barry’s voice beaming with the eagerness and enthusiasm of a nine-year-old kid on Christmas morning.
Hook.
Line.
And Sinker.
“Who?” I was already grinning ear to ear, but still composed enough to sound genuinely intrigued.
“Dude it was that Asian chick from college that was just about to blow me that one night,” He then mentioned her by her last name.
“Huh. What did she want?”
“Dude, she said she wants to finish what she started seven years ago, but this time I better not answer the door if someone knocks.”
“Wow that’s totally bizarre. Where does she live?”
“Her Myspace profile says she lives in Grand Rapids. It’s weird though. She says she is 5′2″. Sue was like 5′10″. I don’t think it’s the same chick.”
“What did she list as her name?” At this point I was severely overbiting my front teeth into my lower lips to keep from bursting out into laughter.
“It doesn’t have a name. All it says is ‘Asian Sensation’.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. How would she know about that night in your room if it wasn’t her?” I said, trying to play Devil’s Advocate without spoiling the prank. “Are you sure Sue was that tall?”
“Dude, when a chick has your wiener that close to her mouth, you tend to remember what she looks like.”
I had to mute the handset fore about 15 seconds to conceal my amusement.
“Did you write her back?” I finally asked, still giggling a little.
“Not yet, I really don’t know what to say.”
“Find out if she ever visits the east side of the state.”
He went on to tell me that at first he thought it was spam but there were too many details to make it a random message. Our conversation lasted about 15 minutes, with Barry speculating that maybe this person perhaps saw the story on this site (which has since been taken down but will be reposted at a later date). He just couldn’t figure out how this person figured out that ‘Barry’ was him.
We ended out conversation with Barry deciding to write her back to get some more direct information about this chick. He agreed to keep me posted. I hung up feeling a little dirty about the wheels I’d helped set in motion.
Barry called my cell phone again around lunchtime the following day.
“Dude it wasn’t real,” were the first words out of his mouth. His voice was very low pitched and monotone, the disappointment glaringly apparent.
He then described the email Cassandra sent that morning as a reply. She told him that she had read a story about him on a website and that she thought it would be funny to pretend like she was the girl in question. She said nothing in the email to implicate Angie or I.
“I know,” I said matter of factly.
A silence of about 20 seconds ensued, almost to the point that I thought the call had dropped.
Barry generally reacts first then thinks later. Barry’s silence indicated that he could have been genuinely pissed.
“I gotta run, dude,” he said abruptly. That was the end of the conversation.
I was a little worried, but I didn’t think too much of it until the calls I made and emails I sent to Barry in days following went noticeably unanswered.
That weekend, I received a call from MKW, a close, mutual friend of both of us.
MKW put things in perspective, letting me know that Barry was more embarrassed about falling for the prank than anything. After chatting with him about it, I decided to give it a few more days, then it’d probably blow over.
Finally, after about ten days or so after the initial prank, I called Barry again. He answered.
“Dude, you still mad at me?”
“No I am over it,” he said with a hint of satisfaction in his voice. “Who knows, that Cassandra chick seems like she might be kinda cool after all.”
“Oh, well that’s cool,” the relief obvious in my voice. I went on to describe how the idea came about and that I actually didn’t have that much to do with it after all. I also told him I could have been a real dick about it and let it go on for a week.
“Dude, let me tell you something. You don’t take a guy who hasn’t gotten laid in six months and make him think he’s got a sure piece of ass lined up. That’s just cruel,” he lectured.
“Sorry dude, it seemed funny at the time,” I laughed.
“And what’s with you pranking me? Do I ever prank you? I consider you to be one of the ‘untouchables‘. I thought you and I were untouchable. Now I am going to have to retaliate.”
I didn’t realize that I had started a turf war.
“Hey, that was just payback for all the times you used to come into my dorm room just to fart on my bed and then leave. But, you do what you gotta do, man. I’ll be waiting with my tommy-gun whenever you’re ready.”
