"At least now I know someone isn't trying to kill me."

It started with a video blog post...

Shane contemplates uses of those annoying musical greeting cards...

One of those uses, suggested near the end of the video (4:20), somewhat casually, was a coat covered in the musical speakers, all rigged to play at once. He then said he would wear the coat to the grocery store, food court, Best Buy, etc and have someone film passerby's reactions.

Shane asks as the end... "Crazy? Yes. Possible? I don't know. You tell me."

Now, I don't know how much traffic Shane's blog gets. I would guess substantially more than this one. I am sure at the time he thought it was just a goofy off the cuff video blog. I don't think he suspected that someone would actually do what he suggested. However, the seed was planted.

Ebay. You can buy anything on Ebay. Including a box of highly annoying musical greeting cards, for dirt cheap...

Pretty easy to rip them all open and remove the speakers and circuit boards...

And then cut the speakers off of each board...

Borrow a soldering iron and some tools from work for an evening...

And then combine 16 of those little circuit boards into one big one...

Now for some type of jacket. Goodwill down the street is perfect for this sort of thing. I discovered a red size 24 prom dress there once. Turns out I fit perfectly into a size 24 dress. And look pretty dang good, if I do say so myself. But for Shane, well... I don't really know his dress size. They had suitcoats there, various faux leather jackets... ah ha! The classic flasher trenchcoat. Perfect!

Poke some holes in the front and tape down all those speakers and the extended wires. It even had an interior liner to hide all the wiring!

Sew the circuit board into the back of the coat. Run the battery disconnect wires over to the pocket, with a simple on/off switch.

Wala! A musical coat...

Now, how to disguise those speakers, so that other shoppers don't suspect the slightly crazed looking fellow with the long flasher trenchcoat, being followed by a camera crew. I know just the ticket... political campaign buttons. He'll blend right in! So I did a little googling and came up with a random assortment of political buttons, and printed them out on a 4x6 photo.

Now, I'll just apply them to the front of the speakers. By totally random chance, I ended up with approximately an even split between left and right wingers. So naturally, the right side of the jacket received one flavor, while the left received the other.

Now, I should point out that it is purely coincidence that the campaign button for one Barack Obama ended up directly below a button with the phrase "Not the brightest crayon in the box now, are we?" Purely coincidence...

Now I just need to box it up. But one more little trick... another musical card in the bottom of the box, with a card tied to the coat. As the coat is pulled out of the box, the musical card starts playing...

Now, this process took several months. I wasn't in a big hurry. But I soon realized that the prime practical joke day of the entire year was fast approaching. So the finishing touches were completed on Monday, with a plan to mail it out Tuesday, for arrival on Wednesday. But Tuesday was a long, busy day at work, and it wasn't until about 8 PM that I left work and realized I never mailed it.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. Or inspiration...

At slightly before 1 AM, the following pictures were emailed to Shane, in this order, from an anonymous email I created on our Cox account...

The photos were taken, of course, on the journey to Shane's house to hand "deliver" the package. I had his address, thanks to an anonymous cousin of his who went to our same high school, so I knew where to go.

At approximately 7 AM the next morning, the following was waiting in my inbox on Facebook...

"Subject: Check Your Head(ers)

from Addink ([71.222.79.218]) by fed2rmimao08.cox.net with bizsmtp id a7u01b007afndfa047u0yz; Wed, 01 Apr 2009 03:54:13 -0400"

etc etc a bunch more header numbers etc

In the words of the great Homer Simpson... DOH!!


Followed by an email saying

"At least now I know someone isn't trying to kill me. I still haven't opened it."

Paige asked me why on earth I was devoting so much time and energy to a practical joke on a guy have seen all of once since his high school graduation 11 years ago. Because of all the people I have met, Shane is the one who would most appreciate the absurdity of an elaborate practical joke, totally out of the blue, based on a silly video blog that he had no idea someone would actually take seriously.

Shane's final email of the day, after opening the box, successfully tripping the musical booby trap, and discovering that those aren't just political buttons on the front...

"I seriously can't believe this. I've checked it out thoroughly and I am blown away. You even made an Abco Pimps button.

This sets the bar really high.

I have a huge grin right now."

And that was my only goal...

And Shane... I expect video footage... ;)