Operation CHEER: An Introduction

Greetings Blogspot. I thought I would just post this pre-even-beginning-to-think-about-the-holidays-for-most-people because well, I have already begun to think about them. That's right. This is the start of many Christmas blogs to come. Mainly this post is to inform you about Operation CHEER! Inspired, of course by the great Maureen Johnson, Operation CHEER is a three part prank I will be playing on my siblings this December. As you may know, or not, I have started pranking my eldest sister Megan in the office of the Family business we both work at. The first one I did was called Operation Michael Jackson in my Co-Worker's Ceiling where I did just what the title implies. I waited for them to go out to lunch for one of their meetings, snatched the ladder from the store room, snatched the worlds longest, GREENEST and most attention drawing extension cord from the bathroom/store room, some old computer speakers I had found a couple days before, and of course my iPod. I made all the necessary technical connections of the equipment and started to work. Up the ladder I went, moved the ceiling tile to the side, placed the speakers up there, threw the end of the extension cord 2 offices down so that I could reach it from that ceiling and get it to a corner of the room where, despite it's greenness, would hopefully not be noticed in the corner. Then I put an alarm for my iPod to start playing Michael Jackson's Thriller through my sister/co-worker's ceiling at exactly 15:23 at which point I would be out of the office on important "errands". Replaced the ceiling tiles and ladder and continued on filing until they got back and I could leave.

I so wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that. I actually set up a camera in my sister's office to try and catch the reaction but unfortunately the camera decided that it would go off after 2 seconds of recording an empty desk and chair. So I just had to settle with them re-telling the story. And re-tell it they did. Many, many times to many different people. There was a lot of searching for the source of the music. My sister was going crazy. Hahaha. I would have loved to see that. She picked up her purse, computer, presser her ear against the filing cabinet to try and find out where it was coming from. Apparently my other sister even got up on the desk to try and see if it was coming through the ceiling some how ; ) I actually probably could have stayed because they didn't assume it was me for a long time. The hardest thing would have been keeping a straight face though. I don't know if I could have done it. I mean I'm pretty good after extensive training from my roommate Sarah, but I'm not that good. I don't even know if she's that good.

I haven't really done anything since then except for stuffing almost all the chairs in the entire office into her office. That was kind of spontaneous as I just walked by and saw it unattended and thought I should do something about it.

I'm hoping to spark some sort of desire to get back at me in her. And ideally I would like her to team up with the other siblings so that they could do something really un creative and lame to try and get me back so that I could have real incentive to carry out Operation CHEER. I mean besides the obvious of it just being amazing to hear their reactions. I think after I do that it will definitely spark something. SO! Moving right along...

The Plans

Megan's House: I'm going to purchase some really inexpensive wrapping paper (Walmart will probably have a really good special or something) and wrap everything in their house. I mean EVERYTHING. Including their CAT! Every item in their house will be gift wrapped!! CHEER!

Whitney's House: This needs a bit of backstory. My sister Whitney HATES those inflatable Christmas lawn ornaments that people put in their yard and is also VERY particular about her Christmas lights. They have to be white and they have to be perfectly straight. So naturally, after her husband Jamie gets up all the decorations to her liking I will... re-decorate. Starting with the lights. They will be replaced with coloured lights and depending on how many are needed I might splurge and by the ones the twinkle. These will be put up both carelessly and crookedly. Then I will put some of the aformentioned inflatable lawn ornaments that my parents purchased for the front of the Family business in their yard just to add even more CHEER!

Liam's House: This is the most complicated and daring of them all. First I am going to switch all the light bulbs in their house to red and green ones. Then I am going to set something up so that when they come in some confetti or fake snow falls on them. Both easy. Then I am going to try and rig something to their light switch so that when they come in Let it Snow starts playing. That's the hard part. My friend Joel gave me the idea for the light switch. He's really smart and good at that stuff so I believe him. I just need to get him to explain it to me better. He said you can just take the switch/face part off of it, switch and maybe add some wires and then it'll work. I'm thinking about using my old iPod mini so that it doesn't ruin it or something. Or an old stereo or something. That is if my iPod mini works. One day it just decided it didn't want to be an iPod anymore and deleted my whole library. Hopefully it'll work again after a 3 year sabbatical. To see how this might work I undid the light switch for my closet to look at the wires and stuff. It's a bit confusing but I think after some google help I should be OK. I did get shocked a bit though. I accidentally hit the switch to turn it on at the same time touching one of the wires that was wrapped around a screw in the side of the switch and got a bit of electricity. It was weird. It didn't really hurt but my finger still feels a bit tingly. It was quite shocking (lame) more than anything, really.

So yeah, those are my plans. I do have a slight problem however. I am debating whether or not I even want to pull one over on my elder brother because he, as Mario Puzo (author of The Godfather) puts it, "He is a man of respect". Not that he's a violent gangster but I mean he is the only one who could really get me back. And since I'm the younger sister he won't hold back. Especially after I've gotten him so good. Then again, not doing something after I've done something to all the other siblings may show a sign of weakness and he may peg me as a scared, easy target. I think I'm going to do it. If I can dish it out I have to be able to take it as well I suppose. And I have a couple pages in my notebook of potential things I could do. One of them involves the ransom notes that I got from the dollar bin at target. They literally read "I have _____. Please leave ______ by the ______ if you ever want to see _______ again. -Master of the Seven Seas". Awesome. I was really excited when I found those in my closet.

So that's pretty much it. Let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions. : ) I'll be posting more about this in the future when the time comes to actually pull it off.

Pace