Aborted Practical Joke

A few months ago, I noticed that one of our equipment storage rooms was rated as a sound hazard area. As a result, it has a large sign on the door reading, “DANGER! 2 FORMS OF HEARING PROTECTION REQUIRED.” Expanded, that basically means, “Look people, we know you love to blare your rock music and show how manly you are, etc., but we’d rather you not have a good reason to sue the company when you go deaf. Since we know perfectly well that it’s loud in here, this sign means you are required by your job to put in earplugs and wear a dorky pair of hearing protection that looks like headphones if you want to go in here. Try suing us now! Haha!”

The reason I found that odd, is that it’s one of the quietest areas around. Certainly a lot quieter than many of our non-sound-rated areas. So I looked into that matter, and, just as I suspected, the sign was put up to warm people of the boiler system. You know, the huge, loud boiler system that was moved out of there 10 years ago.

Anyway, I eventually got around to derating the area. As the final step, I went out to pry the sign off the door. Here’s where the amusing part kicks in. Our new warning signs are printed metal plates that are glued onto doors. This sign, in contrast, turned out to be nothing more that a gigantic plastic sticker. I quickly discovered that it would easily peel off the door in one piece if I was careful.

A smile flashed across my face. “DANGER! 2 FORMS OF HEARING PROTECTION REQUIRED.” I saw myself buying a blank white T-shirt. I imagined gluing the sticker onto the T-shirt and then giving the shirt as a practical joke to someone I know well and tease often. (You know who you are.) I was very pleased with this wonderful, unplanned joke idea.

Unfortunately, the sticker warped during the peeling. So it wouldn’t look good enough to wear if I made it into a T-shirt. However, since the idea was a good one, I immortalize the joke here, where the intended recipient will hate me just as much for it as if I had actually made the shirt. And that’s really the goal here.