As one would expect, we have a good time around here. Case in point: at about 12:30 yesterday, I realized the right side of my desk was about an inch and a half higher than the left side.

Jason Yates and Jason Silvers did it while I was in St. Louis last week. Since Monday, I’d been compensating for the tilt with my body position. I got suspicious because I was making way, way more typing errors than usual. A slight offset between left and right hands makes a big difference, apparently.

The tilted desk, while clever, is not the most devious prank I’ve had pulled on me recently.

Read on:

About a month ago, my green Klean Kanteen water bottle went missing after a morning presentation. I have a tendency to leave it sitting somewhere and forget about it, so this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence.

Then this note showed up with the temp receptionist. She said a white-haired man had dropped it off without leaving a name:

The Ransom Note

There were three variables in the office on June 1. Two were clients. One was Aaron Perlut, Managing Partner of Elasticity, founding member of the American Mustache Institute and a prominent, outspoken bacon enthusiast. If you’ve never met Aaron, this video of his defense of Jason Giambi’s mustache on ESPN’s First Take will give you a decent idea why I immediately suspected him of hijinks:

Over the next week the ransom notes escalated. I sent Aaron harassing e-mails and got confused and confusing responses. I knew he was the culprit. The fax header had the St. Louis financial services fax number on it, and he sits near there. Plus, there was the suspicious detail of him giving me an awesome miniature cassette case/Vanilla Ice bubble gum package on his way out the door on June 1 – only moments before I received the ransom note.

The Vanilla Ice bubble gum, Exhibit B

Two weeks ago, I find my beloved water bottle hidden underneath one of the oversized noise-making Hulk hands in Shanna’s office. After finding it, I hid it in one of my desk drawers and drank out of a glass like a commoner. One water bottle in the drawer not being used is better than one water bottle in the hands of a ransom artist not being used, after all.

Today, one month and one day after the initial ransom note, I walk into my office to find this confession:

The confession. We did it.

It was added to my Wall of Stuff:

My Wall of Stuff

It turns out, Jason Yates, one of our art directors in Kansas City – to whom I ranted and raved for an entire month about what possible motive someone could have for ransoming my water bottle, with whom I puzzled over the possible meanings of the number 14.63 in the initial note, to whom I revealed that I’d had my wife helping me in the evenings trying to figure out if anyone was selling my water bottle online for $14.63 or if the number held any special significance as a date or as a geometric ratio – was responsible for the theft all along. I’d left my water bottle sitting on his desk one too many times, and he took me for a monthlong ride using his Keyser Soze-like diversionary tactics.

Mr. Yates, thank you for robbing me of the enjoyment of a month of evenings I instead spent worrying about the motives of the culprit and the possible significance of the numbers 1-4-6-3. You’ve pranked me worse than anyone before – including the still unknown hooligans who covered my windshield in Vasoline back in high school.

Aaron, I’m sorry for the accusatory e-mails, and I’m sorry Yates didn’t fill you in on the scheme. I’m sure you would have happily contributed to my undoing.

St. Louis financial department personnel, I’m sorry for my angry faxes. You just got caught in the crossfire.

The sad part is, the only things at stake were a water bottle and the most arbitrary sum of money imaginable. Nevertheless, it kept me up at night. I guess that’s what makes it such a good prank.

Cheers,

jae