The Whistle

When I started this blog I mentioned that I might recount some pranks from time to time. For some reason, pranks are an integral part of college life. I’ll start with a simple but rewarding one.

The entire McPherson College campus was heated by a central steam plant — much like parts of Manhattan Island. It was natural to use a steam whistle to mark important times during the day, noon, for example. (The evening curfew was rumored to be more important in earlier times.)

The head maintenance man for the college naturally viewed the whistle as under his exclusive jurisdiction. And his personality made him the perfect victim.

Access to the whistle was simple. The building was never locked. All you needed to do was climb the last flight of stairs, and pull the whistle’s chain. So one night my buddy and I blew the whistle emphatically right at midnight. Then we flew down the stairs and out a little used door.

Nothing happened, so a few days later we blew the whistle again. This time the maintenance man came to investigate, but we were a little too quick for him.

We knew he was fiercely determined to catch the culprit(s) by now. We figured that he would be much quicker to respond if we blew it again, but we had a diabolical plan.

There was a large, empty packing crate sitting a few feet away from the whistle. Other than that, the room was bare. We decided that it would be the last place he would look for culprits. We carefully checked out the whole building, found that the coast was clear, blew the whistle and calmly walked into the packing crate through a loose side.

Sure enough he came flying up the stairs. He inspected the whistle, and opened a  window to see if we were out on the main roof. We imagined that he scratched his head for a while, and then we heard him go back down the creaky stairs. After waiting an hour or so, we carefully exited the building. I’m sure we had more fun than the the maintenance man.