From: Craig Yarbrough (HCY100@psuvm.psu.edu) 

Switching Keyboards

One of the best shens I ever pulled was back in high school during computer
programming class. We were using IBM PC jrs. (pieces of crap!) I was sitting
directly across from a girl in my class (cheerleader, probably) and our computers
were facing away from each other. A few minutes into the class, she got up to leave
the room and as soon as she left, an idea so brilliant and merciless came upon me I
just couldn't resist trying it. I reached between our two computers and switched the
inputs for the keyboards. She came back and sat down and started typing and
immediately got a distressed look on her face. She called the teacher over and
explained that no matter what she typed, nothing would happen. The teacher, in all of
her computer omnipotence, tried everything short of rebooting the computer. By this
time I was hiding behind my monitor and quaking red-faced. I started to type...
'Leave me alone!' They both jumped back, silenced. 'What the..' The teacher said. I
typed 'I said leave me alone!' The cheerleader got real upset, 'I didn't do anything to
it, I swear!' It was all I could do to hold my water! The conversation between them
and HAL 2000 went on for an amazing five minutes. 'Don't touch me!' 'I'm sorry, I
didn't *mean* to hit your keys that hard.' 'Who do you think you are anyway?!' 'My
name's Melanie' 'That's a stupid name!' ....etc... Finally, I couldn't contain myself
any longer and fell out of my chair and about peed myself. After they had realized
what I had done, they both turned beet red! Funny, I never got more than a C- in that
class... and come to think of it, never got a date from any of the cheerleaders either!
Life is great! 


Peter Leppik