Guest Blogger Delilah

During my senior year we had a principal that prided himself on being a strict disciplinarian who could “smell trouble coming from a mile away”. I spent more hours in Saturday detention than should have been legal. The weekend janitor knew me by name, knew what kind of car I drove, and knew that I loved Mountain Dew soda. And now as I see that typed out, he might have also been a stalker. Hmmm. Anyway, we did not like this principal. We made it our mission to come up with epic pranks that would live on in the legends of our high school forever. I daresay that we succeeded.

It all started with my 14th Saturday detention in a row. Yeah, I said it. Fourteen. In a row. And this was not a scene from The Breakfast Club either. This was hard labor, complete with washing windows, scraping gum from under tables, and all kinds of other nasty stuff. The 14th detention was the last straw. Plans were made. Now it’s important to note that this was back in the day before schools had video surveillance, security guards, deadbolts, and the like. The only thing between the Principal’s office and a small gang of juvenile delinquents was one measly lock, easily opened with the key that someone managed to borrow from the janitorial service. 


Remember those farms with ponds that I spoke of earlier? One of my partners in crime happened to live on a farm with some of those ponds. One of which was stocked with large fish. Very large fish. Fish that were easily caught by the bucket full.

When the principal walked into his office bright and early Monday morning he was greeted by the faint odor of fish. A faint odor that got worse and worse as the week went on until the stench was overwhelming. The stench began to reach beyond the principal’s office and into the lobby, then into the front hallway, then on to the main vestibule. It was almost unbearable by the end of the week. Did I mention that it was towards the end of the school year, the school had no air conditioning, and the temps were rapidly approaching the mid 90’s? Yeah, so there was that. Can you imagine the smell? Nobody could walk near the principal’s office without gagging. It was great.

It took him weeks to find all the fish that we hid throughout his office. We were creative in our stinky fish placement. There were the easy to find ones- such as the one on top of his bookcase or the one inside his potted plant. Then there were the ones that he had to search for- like the one inside his overhead light and the one inside the ridge of his window sill. Finally there were the really hard to find ones that required him to sniff them out slowly- the one inside his wall socket and the one behind his desk drawer that could only be found by taking out the entire drawer. We were sneaky in our assault.


Nobody was ever able to prove who was involved even though every student, and teacher, in the school knew exactly who the guilty participants were. The Principal’s office stunk for what seemed like weeks. I giggled every time I walked passed, when I wasn’t  busy holding my nose and gagging.


That was the big prank, the one that made us legends. The one that made us felons. The one that ensured none of us would ever attend a high school reunion.

I guess the principal really could smell the trouble coming from a mile away after all. Huh.