Varacchi’s Greatest April Fool’s Prank

This year is the 10th anniversary of the greatest prank I have ever pulled off.

At the time of this prank, I was living in a house in Long Branch with some college buddies. The key players in this prank are myself, Brandon, Rick, and Tim (who all shared the house with me), and Zack (a guy we were friends with and crashed a lot but didn't pay rent so he stayed in a spare closet with a mattress on the floor sometimes). The house we rented was right on Ocean Avenue, directly across from Seven Presidents Park.

Brandon had the reputation in our group as a "Prank Monkey", the guy we would get to do random stupid stunts, similar to Jackass or Tom Green. It was our senior year, so I knew I wanted to do something memorable for April Fool's Day.

Brandon and I had met working at our college radio station

Those fresh-faced freshmen grew to be two seniors with our own shows. I did the coveted Thursday night 9-midnight shift, and Brandon followed me from midnight til 3am. Joining Brandon were the aforementioned Zack and Rick. The timing of our shows would prove a key element to this prank.

Zack became my accomplice, and after a few rejected ideas, I decided that I would "steal" Brandon's car.

My first plan was to just take Brandon's keys and drive his car when I left the house to do my show, but I realized it would be too obvious when he noticed his car was missing but mine was still there. The plan changed to a slightly more risky one.

A few minutes before I was going to leave to do my show, I snuck into Brandon's room and grabbed his keys off his dresser. Everyone else was downstairs, eating or playing video games, being sufficiently distracted. The biggest obstacle was the fact that, since it was a bunch of dudes in a college house, we parked on the grass in the backyard. If I was going to run out, take his car and drive away, then walk back into the house, I'd have to go past a bunch of windows that looked directly into the kitchen and living room.

Using the totally unbelievable excuse of "hey, I'm just going to run to the convenience store in the strip mall next door, do you need anything?", I managed to get his car, drive a few hundred feet down and park in the far corner of the parking lot, as illustrated in this high-def graphic:

I quickly walked back to the house, in the side door, and up to my room. I put Brandon's keys back (if he saw they were missing, the prank would be revealed too soon), grabbed my own keys, my headphones and my music and split to do my show.

Zack's entire job for the night was to hang at the house before he & Brandon & Rick left for their show, and to push the idea that Brandon be the driver. Around 11pm guys got set to leave, and I got the phone call from Brandon. He attempted to re-prank me by saying there was a ticket on his car, but I didn't fall for it because I had been sure I parked in a regular spot. Nice try, Brandon.

Once they all arrived at the station I got the full story: the three of them walked into the backyard, led by Brandon. He immediately stopped and just blurted out "Dude. Where's my car? -- No seriously, where is my car?"  Zack kept the ruse up for a bit until Brandon started to get worried about it being legitimately stolen, and he finally fessed up.

Now I admit, the prank itself was nothing incredibly unique or outrageous, but I take pride in my flawless execution. There were a ton of things that could have gone wrong (keys not in his room, anyone could've noticed me leave the house and get in the wrong car, anyone could have noticed his car pull out, anyone could have noticed me walking back) but everything just fell into place.

Just for fun, here's another picture of us being ridiculous college bums.