Now I was freaking out, cause I had downloaded around 50 gigabytes worth of files onto my computer in the first semester at college, and I didn't know if they had tracked me on just one CD or all of what I had downloaded. I told my roommate, Gonzo, and our friends Beardo and Christian, that I could possibly be in the deepest shit I had ever been in. So after my class I went directly to my appointment with ResNet and I was just praying that I wouldn't be arrested. Anything else I could handle, just not jail. It turned out that I was completely fine. They had only tracked one CD that I downloaded and they wanted to delete that, and the program I used to download. Although I was upset that I lost the CD, Rhianna's "Good Girl Gone Bad", I could deal with it. I left the office and texted Gonzo to tell him that I was absolutely fine, as long as I stopped downloading. He was almost as relieved as I was and asked me if I wanted him to tell our friends that I was okay. I said no. We had pulled a couple pranks earlier that year, all of which were very successful, and I felt like doing it again. I told him not to say anything and to just pretend he didn't know what had happened yet. (I couldn't fuck with him, because as roommates, and best friends, we had an agreement to never fuck with each other.)
I wanted this to be epic, so my entire walk back across campus, I put myself in a terrible mood, trying to look as sad as possible so when I walked back into my room, the story I was about to tell would be believable.
Gonzo was sitting on his bed, and Beardo was sitting on mine. I walked in looking at the floor, and didn't say a word. Gonzo spoke first, "How'd it go Zero?" I looked up at him and gave him the saddest look I could, to plug him into which way I wanted the prank to go. Instead of saying anything, I just shook my head and looked back at the floor. Then Beardo said, "Zero, what happened, are you O.K.?" When I looked at him, I started my performance.
"No...I'm going to jail.." I said in my saddest voice, as if I was on the verge of tears.
They both freaked out, "What?! Are you fucking kidding?"
"No, they.. they tracked everything I've downloaded here, I'm getting arrested, and I owe about $2 million to the RIAA from all the fines.." I stuttered while saying this, like I was on the verge of tears. Then I sat down on my bed next to Beardo, and started to cry. Not just fake tears and a sad face, I actually bawled my eyes out and just kept going with the story while crying, "I don't know what to do! I can't go to jail, I'm only 18! And I can't afford to pay for college, never mind $2 million. My parents are gonna kill me!"
Beardo was absolutely speechless, he was just looking back and forth between me and Gonzo, completely dumbfounded. Even Gonzo, who had known the truth, looked shocked, and he knew the truth about everything. I just sat there and cried for a few minutes while they asked me what happened during the meeting, and I basically told the truth here, give or take a few details. I could tell Beardo didn't even know how to react to everything that was happening, and he got up and went to his room down the hall, saying he'd give me some alone time. I could tell he bought every last word.
When we knew he was back in his room, Gonzo and I laughed harder than either of us had in a long time. We were both amazed that I had cried on cue so well. I told him I didn't really plan that, and I didn't know I was gonna cry so much. Meanwhile, Beardo went back to his room, and told his roommates what happened. They freaked out and told everyone they knew, and so on. By the end of the hour, our entire floor, and some people I didn't even know, thought I was about to go to jail and actually owed $2 million dollars. Some people even deleted all the illegal music on their computers because they were worried that they would be next.
Our friend Christian got back from class later and I was napping at the time, so I couldn't break the news to him, but Gonzo and Beardo told him and he was just as shocked as everyone else. Nobody stopped to question whether or not it was true. Now Beardo and Christian went climbing twice a week, and they had climbing that night, so right before they went, we all went to dinner together, and I told them I had to be back at the dorm by 5:30 to wait for the police to pick me up. So I left the table in the middle of dinner, and said my last goodbye's to my friends. When Gonzo got back, he told the rest of the residents on our floor that it was all a joke. They thought it was hilarious that everybody had bought the story.
When Beardo and Christian got back from climbing, they texted Gonzo to see if he would go get food with them and talk, so he said O.K. and we set off for the dining hall. Gonzo walked in first and saw our friends sitting together at a table, looking rather depressed. Then I walked in behind him and they both did a double take, because they were sure I should be in jail right now. When they realized that I was obviously not in jail, they screamed at me. They knew immediately that they had been fucked with, and bad. Beardo got over it quickly, and was actually very happy to see that I wasn't going to jail. Christian however, did not find it as funny. In fact that happened almost a year ago, and I'm pretty sure he still holds it against me to this day. But nonetheless, I will forever believe that this was by far, the greatest prank I ever pulled.
No comments:
Post a Comment