Most Beautiful Pranks Ever Pulled – The Pineapple Pizza

I've never been great at pranks. I've pulled a couple of that were decent, but only one really good one.

I'll tell my story later. But what got me started talking about pranks on the show this morning was a text we received the day before. We had been talking about how someone gave the mildly PG answer on Wheel of Fortune "chasing tail," and they had a story about a Wheel of Fortune prank was played on their grandfather.

Years ago, my grandpa was obsessed with wheel of fortune. At the time, my uncle lived in Phoenix so it aired an hour earlier than it did here. My uncle called my mom and gave her all of the answers. She sat down to watch wheel of fortune with my grandpa and every time a new puzzle came up she shouted out the answer. My grandpa was so mad and frustrated that he didn't speak to her the rest of the night. She finally had to tell him in was a joke and she was not a genius.

Beautiful prank. One I would have fallen for.

The one really good prank I pulled happened last June in Grand Island, Nebraska. I was shooting in the Zombies in the Heartland 3-gun match with. After the first day of the match, my buddies and I decided to order some pizzas, drink beer, and hang out on the deck behind our hotel. One of the five guys, I'll call him "Jake," really wanted a pineapple and ham pizza. I doubt anyone in our group had a true moral objection to that flavor of pie, but Jake is the youngest in the group by probably ten years, we gave him a pretty hard time about it.

I ordered the pizzas and collected money and my roommate, drove while the others drank beer on the hotel deck. On the way to the pizza place I thought out loud "How funny would it be if we got an empty box to go with the other two pizzas and see how Jake reacts?" Matt, my roommate, thought it was a hilarious idea.

At the drive-thru (yes, the Grand Island Domino's has a drive-thru) I asked if we could buy an empty pizza box. The woman said, "No, but you can just have one if you tell me why." I explained the plan and she laughed and also thought it was a solid idea.

We get back to the hotel and before getting back out on the deck I stashed the pineapple pizza just inside by the vending machines. We then walked out onto the deck with the three pizza boxes and set them down on the table, the bottom one containing nothing but air. Four of us dig into the top two pies. The fifth, Jake, opened the pineapple and ham box after we backed away.

"What in the #$%^+?" he said angrily. "They gave you an empty box! How did you not notice that?"

"Dude, we went to the drive-thru and I held three pizzas," I said. "I've never thought to check all three boxes."

"How could they *#&$ this up so bad?" Jake continued to rant. "There isn't even a grease ring!"

It took all of my self-control to not explode with laughter at that. Is the greasy spot left in the bottom of the pizza box actually called the grease ring? I smirked at the other guys while Jake continued to make plans to get a free pizza or get our money back or get someone fired.

I don't recall exactly how I then let him in on the joke but I think I said something like "Or you could just grab your stupid pineapple pizza sitting inside the door?" Knowing he'd been had, Jake then smiled, laughed and also threatened to do a number of unpleasant things to me. For the rest of the weekend, we would randomly ask Jake "Does it have a grease ring?" We still occasionally drop a text and ask about grease rings.