week #280/ Don't steal my candy!

A few years ago, at the office where I worked, there were some pretty prankster colleagues who sometimes played jokes on each other. At the time, I was just an observer and laughed a lot at their antics, and almost always these pranks were aimed at the abusive coworkers who liked to take things without permission—they were the ones who got it the worst.

I always remember one time when a coworker kept having his stapler taken from his desk and never returned—without permission, of course—until one day he decided to chain it to the desk with a padlock. I laughed so hard at that. Until it was my turn to play a prank on one of my coworkers.

I used to keep all kinds of sweets, cookies, and candies in my desk drawers; then, all of a sudden, they started disappearing for no reason. During my workdays, I always used to leave my drawers slightly open because I was always near my workstation, and beside, nothing had ever gone missing. Several days went by during which my things disappeared for no apparent reason.

And the worst part was that I asked everyone and no one was responsible, until a friend of mine from the area, seeing how constant the abuse had become, did some spying for me and found out who was stealing my candy and told me who it was… then my revenge plan began, ha, ha, ha. Near my workplace there was a novelty shop where they sold all kinds of stuff to pull off any prank you could think of, not to mention costumes and the like.

Then I remember going to the fake candy section and finding some gum that I used to buy a lot and that, apparently, was my sneaky thief’s favorite, ha ha ha. They were exactly the same brand and everything, but the difference between these and the originals was that when you started chewing them, they released a brightly colored liquid that completely stained your mouth, ha ha ha.

So these were my chosen ones; I bought several, put them as always in my drawer, and went for a stroll to nearby offices. Just as I’d anticipated, my thief grabbed my gum when he didn’t see me around and started chewing it. Almost instantly, his mouth, tongue, and teeth turned a metallic purple, prompting laughter from my other colleagues. Hearing the laughter, I knew my prank had worked, so I walked into my office, happy as can be and laughing my head off at the look of confusion on my coworker’s face—he hadn’t even noticed the color of his mouth… until he saw himself in the mirror.

He had to brush his teeth quite a few times to get that color out of his mouth, but from then on he could leave whatever he wanted in my drawers, and it would stay there. They got scared of me, ha, ha, ha. I used to tell them, "If you feel like it, just ask me—no problem—but don’t do what so-and-so did, because you already know how it could go for you." That became an anecdote among all those colleagues who worked together for several years.