Hello, my name is Lori D. and I'm a practical joker. Ahhhhh, that feels better now that the secret it is out.

Of course, it's only a secret to my cyberfriends because my 'real life' friends, family and co-workers have been the brunt of my practical jokes at one time or another.

The earliest practical joke that I can recall was in junior high. Back then, we had records. For you young kids, they are those black things with grooves in them...

We were allowed to bring 45's to school and they would play them during lunch. So I brought one. Only mine was a 45 of parakeets talking. Supposedly it would teach your parakeets how to talk (note to other suckers, they don't work). I carefully soaked and peeled the label off that 45 and put one of my own. "They Byrds". I decorated it with pictures of the group and put my name on it.

When asked why I had my own label, I told them that I did this to all of my 45's... just to make them unique. I got the shoulder-shrug and they accepted it. I guess junior high girls have a reputation for being weird. Heh...heh...

So, I waited for two days and nothing. Finally, on the third day I heard it. "hello baby" (repeated about four times), then suddenly it stopped only to be replaced by the Monkees. Word got out that it was me behind the whole thing and I got a whole lot of attention for it. People thought I was a genius. Oh, and funny. Research tells us that the two go hand-in-hand... but that's for another post.

So that, my friend, is how a practical joker is born.