« Last Day @ GB | Main | In the way? »
April 24, 2005
The Great Plant Napping Incident
Do you remember a few postings back, when I wrote about the Practical Joke Day? Well Steph sent me her accounts of the day, told from her perspective. I just finished reading the e-mail. I was cracking up all over again. Laughing out loud in my empty apartment that's all echo-ey. Anyway, you have to read it from Steph's point of view...I just have to say...maaaaaaaaaaaaan am I EVER going to miss my little Development Team at Guaranty Bank. Although my time here in Texas was short, it was FUN filled with great memories, and great people, whom I hope to stay friends with FOREVER. I should also mention, that I added a picture album of the going away present that they made me. The actual labor credit needs to go to Steph for making the book for me over three nights last week. I think you'll see how close mine and Steph's relationship is once you read her account of the Joke on Beth Day.
The Great Plant Napping Incident
By: Stephanie Schwerdtfeger
Hi Beth,
I've finally written my side of the story....for your reading enjoyment.
Here is my account of what happened in the “Great Plant-napping Incident.”
Friday morning I returned to work after being out of the office for a day and a half. As I walk up to my cube I notice that Beth is particularly attentive and has a huge smile on her face, something that is a little unusual for her at 7:15 in the morning. We chat for a little bit as I turn my computer on and get settled in. As I bend to put my purse in the usual file cabinet drawer, I discover that the drawers have been turned around. I look at Beth and she giggles like a girl caught playing in her mother’s make-up. I get my early morning muscle wake-up turning them around. In the meantime, Beth tells me that they also unplugged my power strip but she felt guilty and plugged it back in before I got in. I thanked her and we chatted awhile longer.
About 9:30, Jeff asks me if I want to go to the call center with him to get a donut from Gail. A donut sounds good so we head off. We are gone about 30 minutes and when I return there is an inner-office envelope on my desk. I don’t receive mail often so I get a little excited. I pull the contents from the envelope and discover that it is a ransom note and the my beloved plant, Fred, has been plant-napped in my absence. Up until that moment I had not noticed he was gone, what kind of mom am I?
The note tells me to fold a sign that says “I’m a fire-starter” and place it on my cabinet where Fred used to sit for all to see. I comply all the while looking at Beth. She is giving herself away, trying to look innocent and act concerned. I know she is responsible as she tries to hide a laugh behind her hand. I confront her and she denies it, saying that Jeff took my plant. I know better than that because Jeff wouldn’t touch my plant for fear of losing all his plants again.
I share the note with Jeff and then walk to the water cooler for some
water. I return to find another envelope on my desk. Through the holes in the envelope I notice the type telling me that this is my second ransom note. I set it aside and start working on a few things. In my rear-view mirror, I can see Beth watching me out of the corner of her eye, trying to be nonchalant. At that moment I decide that the silent treatment is in order. I know she cannot take the pressure and will break down. I’m beating it will be before lunch. I get busy with the tasks at hand and almost forget about the note as it gets buried under a stack of papers. About an hour later I have worked through the stack and the note resurfaces. I wait until Beth goes on break I and open the note. It tells me to write “Steph and Plant Forever” on my white board. I don’t like this note so much so I tuck it away.
Lunchtime is approaching and I am getting a little frustrated because I’m starting to wonder if Jeff really is the culprit, and if he is, my brain starts thinking about what I can do to get back at him. I’m heading out of the office for lunch so I decide to wait until everyone is gone to start the search for Fred. I know he can’t be far. I’m a little surprised that my silent treatment hasn’t drawn Beth to confession (come to find out Jeff was telling her to suck it up and be strong). Everyone heads to the cafeteria and I sneak over to Cheryl’s cube to grab the key to the storage room. Fred is big as far as office plants go so I figured they’d have to hide him someplace out of the line of sight. I came up empty handed and while coming out of the storage room, I am caught by Jeff. He doesn’t seem to know what I’m doing in there but asks me if I’m mad. “Mad,” I ask, “why would I be mad that you all took and hid a plant that one of my closest co-workers gave to me, a plant that means a lot to me?”
Jeff’s eyes get wide and I realize I’m being a little harsh. No I’m not mad I reassure him. He then tells me that Beth thinks I’m mad at her and it is eating her up.
Well, at this point I clue in and realize that my plant is in Ben
Anderson’s cube. I discuss with Jeff the prospect of turning this thing
around and getting Beth back but I don’t want to just take the plant
because that is too obvious. He suggests that we get Ben involved and we head down the hall to turn the tables. I ask Ben if he has ever seen Jaime Kennedy and tell him that I want to prank the prankster. He sends an email to Jeff and Beth asking them if they have already returned my plant. Short, sweet and loaded with possibilities. We move all of the plants out of Ben’s cube to make it look like the plant people cleaned house and I head to lunch, snickering to myself that Beth has no idea what awaits her.
Lunch is good and I pick up another prank device that will come into play later in the story. I return to the office and look down the hall to see one of my co-workers coming from Ben’s area with a red face and I know that the fun has already begun. Someone (I think it was Jeff) approaches my cube and tells me that Beth is “freaking out” because she thinks my plant is missing. Cool, I think, this is going to be better than I had hoped. Then he informs me that she has even made a trip to facilities to report the missing plant so they would start looking for it. At that moment, the entire thing looses its humor because I keep thinking that we are going to be in so much trouble when they find it tucked only two cubes away.
We notice that Beth is coming so we sit down at our desks and pretend to work. Beth comes to her desk and doesn’t say a word to me. Suddenly I start to get emails. Jeff is blind-copying me so that I can see just how much this is eating at Beth. She wants to tell me but doesn’t know how. Then Jeff asks me when I’m going to ask for my plant back so I send an email to both of them. It says: “I know you two took my plant and it makes me very sad because he was just an innocent bystander. When am I going to get him back?” I think this is the last straw and Beth sends a few more emails to Jeff telling him that she wants us to go outside so she can tell me. She doesn’t know what she is going to say but she is willing to take the heat, as long as Jeff is there to support her. What does Jeff say? Okay, good idea in case she makes a scene. Gee, what type of person does he think I am?
So Beth sends an email asking if we can go outside. At this point I’m
having a hard time keeping a straight face so I ask for a minute to go to the restroom, for one final good laugh. Before heading back to my cube I go to find an empty conference room and try to call Jeff. He isn’t at his desk so I head back and spot him around the corner. We have an impromptu meeting hidden behind a pole and I ask him when he thinks we should tell Beth. He suggests that we let her confess and see where it goes from there. I agree and he calmly walks off, clearing me before disappearing around a corner. The whole thing almost feels like a scene out of Alias and for a minute I feel like a super-sleuth.
The three of us head outside, Jeff and I chat some but Beth is solemn,
straight-faced and silent. Whoa, I think, this is getting really hard on her, should I break the news now. I decide to wait for a better moment. Beth starts out by saying that she wanted to play one more prank on me before she left but she regretted it now because it went wrong and my plant was missing! She then tears up and says that she understands if I am mad and don’t want to be her friend and she’ll buy me a new plant if the other one isn’t found. I look at Jeff, who is as shocked as I am to see that Beth is actually crying! Stop it Beth, I want to scream, but I try to stay calm. I tell her that I don’t hate her and that she is still my friend, it is, after all, just a plant. Meanwhile, my mind is racing and I wonder how we are going to get ourselves out of this without hurting Beth, or worse yet, making her hate us.
She sheds a few more tears and I reassure her that she is still my friend. She gives me a hug and Jeff looks at me like I am the most horrible person on the face of the earth. Thanks Jeff.
We head back inside and Jeff offers to go to Ben’s cube and check for the plant one more time. He appears a few minutes later announcing, “look what I found.” Beth is overjoyed and jumps up. At that minute I loose it. Everyone starts to gather and Beth says “what’s going on.” Then she sees my face and the realization sets in. You knew about this didn’t you, she says. I shake my head and ask her if she is able to forgive me and still be my friend. She starts to cry and laugh all at the same time and I keep asking her if she is okay. She assures me that she is and she doesn’t hate me. “That was really good,” she says and she confesses that she is crying because she is so relieved that the plant isn’t really missing.
Then the whole story comes out. I confess that a little bird clued me in to where the plant was and they begin to tell me about Beth’s frantic search for the plant. How she rushes to facilities while Jeff drags his feet saying that the stress has made him need to use the restroom. She can’t believe how he can be so calm when they have such a crisis on their hands. Jeff shares how Beth tried to describe the plant for the lady in facilities, using gestures and vague descriptions, how the lady looked at Beth with an expression that said “can she be serious,” and how Beth told her it was very important that the plant was found.
Beth shared that she wanted to crack before lunch but Jeff kept telling her to be strong and then she said that he was going to let her take all the heat for it. Jeff cut in to tell her that he had been blind-copying me on all the emails and that at one point he looked over and saw me laughing so hard my face was red.
Come to find out, Beth was so torn up about taking my plant that she
worried about it all through lunch and everyone finally just told her to give it back. As all the pieces started coming together, the story became more and more funny. After we all had a good laugh, Beth gave me the remaining 3 ransom notes and I told her that she did a really good job planning the prank. Come to find out, Jeff almost jumped ship while they were planning it just because he could see it coming back on him. No wonder he jumped ship so fast! Later, while Beth was writing about it in her blog, I kept glancing over to find her with her face down on her desk, just laughing at the humor of it all.
This is definitely one prank we won’t soon forget…The great plant-napping incident. All I can say is New York better watch out. After 9 months in Texas, Beth will be a force to be reckoned with.
But the day’s festivities did not end there (though I’m sure poor Beth
wishes they had). While she went out for a second break after the air had cleared, I pulled out the prank device I had gotten at lunch…a
remote-controlled fart machine. I was sure that Beth couldn’t handle much more torture and was going to wait until Monday but Jeff convinced me that we needed to do it as the grand finale, so I planted the machine behind the file cabinet right under where her computer sits on the desk. That was after Kristina, Jeff, Vicki and I laughed so hard that Vicki was actually crying.
So it is planted and I am trying to stay cool, all the while envisioning what Beth’s face is going to look like the first time she hears the machine fart. Kristina asks me to wait until she returns from her meeting so we have about an hour and a half to calm down. Finally Kristina comes back and Shelly is in her cube talking about the meeting. This is a perfect opportunity, I realize, so I hide the remote in my lap and send Jeff an email that says “Are you ready for this…I think this is going to be the end of me.” As Shelly walks by the cube I push the button and the machine lets one rip, a nice loud one. I’m watching for Beth’s reaction in my mirror and Shelly stops and turns around, an astounded look on her face. I think Beth was just going to play it off until Shelly questioned her. At that moment, Beth rips her head phones off and says “that wasn’t me, I didn’t fart.” She proceeds to blame her chair, her shoes and even the box under her desk. Shelly gives her the knowing, sympathetic look and goes to her cube.
I am facing my computer laughing so hard, silently of course, that my
shoulders are shaking. Beth gets up and I stand to look at Jeff who is
equally amused by the whole thing. Then we hear Beth over in Shelly’s cube. What is she doing, well, we conclude that she is trying to convince herself that she didn’t fart.
Jeff sends me an email telling me to do it again when he walks by and I
tell him that I need a few minutes to breathe. He doesn’t give me long and he walks by. My timing is perfect and the machine sounds again. At this point I know Beth is thinking that the machine doesn’t sound like a real fart but she still has no idea what is going on. She offers to try to fart just to convince us that it isn’t her, but we all turn down her offer.
Beth follows Jeff to his desk and begins to search his hands for the
culprit. He is only holding a paper clip. Kristina is next and she raises her hands telling Beth that she has nothing to do with it. She hits the magic mark and the machine goes off. Someone screams and Beth bolts out of her cube. She begins to look in the plant and walk back and forth trying to trigger the thing. She lifts her hands, walks slow, walks fast and keeps asking us what is going on.
Finally we give in and Jeff pushes the button until she finds the machine under her desk. The day was over for us and no work was going to get done from that point on.
It was such a pleasure to work with Beth. She is such a good sport! I think there are a few lessons she has learned in her time with us. One, fart machines don’t sound like real farts. And two, if you are gullible, you will be on the receiving end of many pranks :) Thanks Beth, for all of the fun memories. I will miss you!
Posted by beth at April 24, 2005 10:20 PM