Today is the day my brother-in-law leaves for college and I’m feeling a little nostalgic, so in honor of him leaving I thought I’d write a quick post about my favorite prank in college.

One of the first things that most college kids do right after moving in to the dorms is run to Wal-Mart one last time with their parents to make sure you can get as much last-minute stuff as possible without having to pay for it. Because, once the parents are gone, you can pretty much mark that down on your calendar as the day they start drastically decreasing the amount of free cash they float your way.

Now, as you scour the isles searching for anything and everything you might conceivably need throughout the next few months, chances are you will figure out sooner or later that you don’t have an answering machine. I mean… you do need an answering machine, don’t you?

Typically, there will be several options on answering machines and you better believe that everyone is going to buy the cheapest one on the shelf. Why? Because it’s an answering machine, you don’t need top-of-the-line here; you just need something to get you by.

Here’s the beauty of the situation, this means that a great majority of new students will have the same answering machine as you, and yes, they all have a remote administration feature.

All you have to do is dial up some of your buddies when they are in class (or, you know, wherever college kids hang out these days) and wait until their answering machine picks up. Simply type in the default administrator code (usually “1111”) and you’re in! Now you can change their greeting into something a little more embarrassing.

Most of the time, your victims won’t even realize their greeting message has been changed for several weeks.

This is especially sweet when you do this to your next door neighbors because you can hear your custom greeting from your dorm room every time they miss a call.

So there you have it, a low-risk and somewhat lame prank that can potentially give you and your buddies a few laughs during the first couple weeks of college.

And, if you’re leaving this week for the dorms for the first time; good luck!

Oh! And don't forget to head on over to Amazon and grab your free one-year subscription to Amazon Prime.