Prank it up

The only rule is...no one gets hurt. Also, Adams has to be home by 11 p.m. or his mom will be worried. Oh, and no more than seven people can fit in my car. But other than that, anything goes. Let's talk about pranks. With everything that happened in Cape Elizabeth last week I was torn between whether to write something or not. As the "youth culture" reporter this is squarely in my area of study. But at the same time there was already plenty being written and said about the incident and the students involved (now regarded as the "Cape 10" at least by commenting readers). There was one thing that stood out to me though. While these students did a fair amount of damage, it almost seemed kind of pointless. That's not to say there is such a thing as damage that makes a point, but what was the point? The bigger question: Whatever happened to creativity? A quick search in our archives proved that the words "prank" and "vandalism" showed up in a lot of stories, second only to "prank" and "bomb threat." (One notable exception - students at Gorham High School got a day off after some of their peers piled snow in front of all the school's entrances and poured water on the door handles for good measure.) So the question is, whatever happened to the wacky hijinks? Are wacky hijinks a product of pop culture (any number of TV shows and movies on high school) or fond memories of the past? The biggest question of course would be why do we feel the need to pull pranks? Is it to challenge authority or as pop psychologists might say "signify the passage into adulthood?" Can't say I know, but ideally when a prank is done well there's minimal damage and maybe a little bit of admiration or respect. But that's enough out of me; what do you think? Why do we pull pranks in high school? What did you do as a high school prank? Where is the line between vandalism and pranks?