I know, just about everyone does a 'fun at school' bit these days,
but what about those areas of the school where you don't normally
think that there would be a lot of fun things to do? How about my
personal favourite, the Mechanical Room. Just about every school
has 'em. They usually contain the school's boilers, ventilation &
air return systems, and sometimes the main electrical & plumbing
hookups. Instant fun in the right hands. I am with the yearbook &
AV crew at school, so I travel through the Mechanical room quite a
bit on my way to the roof for a few photos of the schools. But for
some other geek who doesn't kiss up to everyone at the school by
joining every club in sight (Useful to use in court if you are ever
caught, because they seem to like nice, little well rounded
students, like me.), access to the Mechanical room may be
difficult. Take heed, since your school may not have a Mechanical
room. It may have door labelled "Fanroom" or "Boiler Room" or
"Environmental Control" or some shit like that. They are all the
same, except they will be tougher to get access to, since you'll
have more than one room to get into. First, lets familiarize
ourselves with the general layout of the room.
TURNER FENTON SECONDARY SCHOOL MECHANICAL ROOM LAYOUT (North Hall)
First, there is the Boiler heating system. This is the main heating
system of the school. In this setup, water is sent through chillers
and cooling towers to cool the water down. Then the water is sent
through the boilers themselves to heat up. The water is
compressed in an array of compressing units so it doesn't turn to
steam. The hot water is sent to radiators throughout
the school and to the blowers in the Fanroom to heat the air. The
water is then returned to the boilers to be re-heated. Most boilers
today use natural gas to heat the water, so there should be a
cutoff somewhere. The boilers are about the only thing that you can
have fun with here. The chillers are too unaccessible and
complicated to foul up, and you would have to go outside to dick
around with the cooling tower. The fanrooms distribute fresh air
around the school, and also house the air conditioning units and
filters. The blowers themselves are REALLY easy to sabotage. The
ducts have hatches on them that allow easy access with cherry
bombs, stink bombs, old socks, piss, just about anything. That just
about constitutes the basic school mechanical room. Now for ways of
obtaining access to the sacred room:
1. Keys. These are the most obvious & easy. Just become buddies
with the school's Custodians (Toiletmonkies) & grab the key ring
off of their belt or desk when they aren't looking. If you are
really on the ball swipe the Master key. It'll open any door in the
school. It is usually the one with the large grip or something like
that. If you aren't lucky enough to get the master take the whole
ring & make some copies. (There are tons of Underground key
grinders around, but the extra long key slugs may be a problem in
obtaining). For obvious reasons, NEVER EVER EVER KEEP THE KEYS!
Its easier to take them for a night and then slip them back on his
desk the next day. The toiletmonkeys are usually too drunk to
notice that they are gone anyhow. Just slip them under his desk.
Chances are he will not report them missing because he might be
held responsible (Or the victim of his own stupidity..). Remember,
all Toiletmonkies think alike. They must brainwash them at plunging
school or something. Anyhow, back on topic, try every key until you
get the one that open the door to the Mechanical Room. (Watch out!
The doors are usually near the office or the Custodial wing. If
they see you with a shitload of keys trying to break into the
Mechanical Room, Vias con Dias!). After you find the key, copy it
and any other key you might find useful (The AV room is good.
That's where the sound equipment, TVs & VCRs are stored, but that's
a different matter.) The best time to gain access is either with
the hallway full or in the evening. Use some concert or assembly
going on as an excuse to be at the school. This is also a good time
to be up there, since the Toiletmonkies are usually in there during
the day, fixing the damage caused by another of my readers or
smoking a joint or whatever they do. In the evening they are
usually reading a copy of Whips Weekly or Playboy in the office, so
you should have no trouble getting up there...
2. The roof door. A little harder but just as productive. Most
schools have doors that allow access to the roof. Where do the
doors lead to? You guessed it. Its usually the Mechanical Room.
Just pick the lock (Or use your Master Key) and you are in. If it
is night that you decide to go in, you may run into a problem in
the way of motion/infrared detectors. When I was up there last, I
attempted to make a map of the Mechanical room & where all of the
heat sensors are located (There wern't any, surprise surprise.).
Its just plain dumb to put heat/infrared sensors in a room full of
boilers. (News flash... Boilers boil water. That requires lots of
heat). It would create all sorts of ghost images with all of that
heat radiating everywhere. But they usually have SOME sort of
security in there, so scratch going in at night, unless you can
disconnect the pickup (Guess what! The Security system is SOMETIMES
stored in the Mechanical Room! What luck!). My school is REALLY
poorly designed. The door from the roof doesn't have any sensors
on it... Duh! Maybe they were removed by some other enterprising
soul such as myself (grin..). Like I said, the best time to go in
is during the day or evening during some event. But I would suggest
this as a last resort.
3. Just ask! Yep.. If you know the Building Supervisor (Head honcho
of the Toiletmonkies) well enough (A few days of casual
conversation should do it), just ask him to let you up the roof to
take pictures or test air quality or whatever. (Its a good idea to
play the part, so bring a camera or a notebook with you, just to
make it look genuine). Just about all of my sources at 6 schools in
the Brampton/Mississauga say that they will let you with NO
supervision. This is good, because you can stall (Bring your lunch
or a pack of cigs.. This is also a good time to stock up on your
Tennis Ball collection, you know. For those grenades & shit.) We
will go into fun on the roof a little later on. Okay, its time to
get busy....
PART 1 - PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE
This is the easiest way to freak out the Toiletmonkies without
doing any or much harm. First, whip out your trusty magic marker,
super glue, suction cup & wrench. Some of the older rooms have an
entire wall filled with gauges showing stuff like boiler
temperature, urinal water pressure, school humidity, etc. First,
pick a gauge that shows something critical to school safety. Slap
the suction cup onto the glass cover. Then, using the wrench,
remove the metal bushing around the glass. (If you bend the soft
metal, don't worry about it. Just don't misshape it TOO much. You
have to put it back on later.) After you remove it, break off the
needle & place it anywhere that looks good. For example, place
urinal water pressure at 3 000 000 pounds (It won't really be that,
but the next Toiletmonkey who looks at it will think so!) Then glue
the needle back on. Replace the cover & bushing with glue. Voila!
Instant panic & chaos as they turn off the water & rip the plumbing
apart looking for the problem. Or, if you feel crafty, just break
off the needle & draw in about 5 or 6 of them right on the face.
THAT'LL confuse the quaaludes out of them! Unfortunately, some of
the more modern Mechanical rooms use foolproof digital readouts.
There isn't much you can do with those.
Some use computers, though. And THAT'S always fun. Just reach
behind & switch off the mainframe. Or if you can get to the
Operating System (DOS?), you can load up a few viruses. This is
unlikely, but fun to think about! They wonder why the school is so
cold, investigate, and find all of the letters in the boiler
control program sitting at the bottom of the screen!
Another way to have fun at their expense is to look for small water
pumps that help move the water through the boilers. They are
usually small little $60 Canadian Tire motors with belts powering
the pump. Either take the belt off of the pulley or put a knife
beside the belt, just enough so it is rubbing against it. After a
while, long after you are gone & out of blame's reach, the belt
will wear down & snap, causing a few of the boilers to back up &
burst some pipes. The whole school will be up to its ass in water!
They might even have to cancel classes! Cool! Heh heh heh (Damn
Beavis & Butthead) heh heh.. Or just cut off the main natural gas
feed. This is easy to find, since its the big motherfucker pipe
with the words "NATURAL GAS -->" written on it (Duh....). The one
at my school is in the stairwell that leads into the mechanical
room foyer. It should have a big cutoff valve somewhere. Just throw
the valve & voila. The flames are gone. If you can't find the valve
just play around with the boiler control panel (Located near the
boilers themselves). Unfortunately, some systems (Like mine) have
backup tanks just in case gas is cut off. Fool around a bit. That's
the only way you are going to be able to have any fun.
PART 2 - INTER-SCHOOL MISCHIEF
Enough with the poor boilers for now, lets concentrate on the
Fanrooms. They are usually adjacent to the Boiler room (Since
Mechanical rooms house Boilers & the blowers). You can have ALL
sorts of fun in there! If you play your cards right the whole
school could pay for your joy! First, try to find a maintenance
hatch on the mail blower assembly (Usually the large metal box with
all of the ducts & conduits running into it. Its the one with the
main fans & filters in it). BEWARE! If you open the wrong hatch you
will be sucked inside & that will be the end of you. (But little
pieces of you will be sprayed throughout the school, so your death
won't be meaningless!). To be safe, try to find where the filter
bay is. If you find it, take out the filter (Somehow.. All MBA's
are different) and toss in a few vials of Stinkjuice or rotten
eggs. The main filter downwind of the other filters should block
the glass (or shell), but the smell will be spread by the blowers
and transmitted throughout the school via the air ducts. Instant
fun, since the school will be stinked out & as blowers are shut
down for days while they are scrubbed & cleaned. In some older
schools where there is one main blower, they might have to cancel
school due to the poor air quality (There is some legal limit to
how much of what can be in the air. And without the fans going
there will be too much Carbon Dioxide & the health board will go
fucking nuts (Since stuff like this can lead to lawsuits against
the school). But by that time you will be down the stairs & outta
there, with about ten guys giving you a good alibi. And if you are
caught just say that you were on the roof at the time & that it was
the Custodian's fault that the door downstairs didn't lock
properly. They won't be able to dispute it because ALL vice
principals know that the Toiletmonkies don't do shit extra if they
aren't getting paid for it.
Another way to have fun is to find the water mains. This is the
hardest & most difficult to pull off, since if someone walks in on
you, you don't have enough time to put things back to the way they
were. First, you have to find the freshwater mains. Don't worry.
They should be there somewhere. Found it? Good. Now, some of them
have small openings for monitoring such things as water quality,
additions of pipe, SLT. Just find them. They are usually little
branches that stick out from the main pipe. (God knows if I can
find them on the pipes at my school. But 2 other sources report
them, so your school might or might not have them. (If you school
has a "Plumbing" or "Water" room, forget it.). Found it yet? Okay..
Now take out your handy screw/nut driver and remove the screws &
plate (Or whatever..). Now just pop anything from M-80s with long
fuses to coloured dye. Or even put in some strong tabasco or Milk
of Magnesia (Laxative). If you feel REALLY destructive you can just
take a fire axe to the pipe, and watch it fly! Aim it at the main
electrical panel.. Sparks!
PART 3 - DESTRUCTION!!
This the my personal favourite.. Real, good old fashioned chaos!
This following section may lead to the total destruction of your
school, so take heed...
First of all, most boilers in schools run on natural gas. The ones
at my school have the burners under the boiler itself. The ones
where you can see the flame if you crouch down. Now get up from the
floor and look for the gas pipe described earlier. Grab the lever
(or twist-tap) and pull (Turn) as hard as you can until you hear
the gas hiss real loud. Keep pulling until the gas stops. You
should hear the flames under the boilers snuff out. Then turn the
gas back on & run like hell! Soon after, with the aid of the
blowers (If any), the gas should spread throughout the entire
school. And when someone does something, like light a match or hit
a lightswitch, BOOOOOMMM!! Scratch one High School. Like I said, DO
NOT ATTEMPT THIS! THIS IS FOR "INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY"!!!. So
if I hear on CityPulse that some school went up in a big fucking
ball of flame, I will be VERY pissed! Besides, this is rather
untested (I have no desire to incinerate my school (yet..)), and,
as I mentioned before, some systems have backup tanks.
Another way to wreak havoc on the boilers is to throw a few
handfuls of cherry bombs or M-80s into the fires. It won't destroy
the school but you can say goodbye to the boiler. Just run the hell
out the there otherwise you will either be sprayed with hot water
or pieces of metal (Just like shrapnel!)
PART 4 - MISCELLANEOUS MISCHIEF
After enough fun in the Mechanical Room, why not step out into the
fresh air for a few seconds. Feel better? Good. Ah.. What do you
see? Those big smokestacks! Is there anything you can do to them?
Of course, stupid! These stacks are the boiler's heat chiminies.
They are usually too tall to throw stuff into (They have little
caps on the top as well..) but there is more than one way to kill
a boiler. See the guy wires that support the tall stacks? Just give
them a little snippety snip and wait until the next storm. With
nothing to support them, they will be ripped right out of the roof,
since they don't have ample support to stay up. After that, the
rain water can get into the boiler, which will REALLY screw things
up. Another way to have fun is to bring a bedsheet with your
favourite saying on it (The cruder the better..). Then unfurl it to
the world! Make sure that it is secure. It might blow away on you
without notice. A few bricks or a well-placed nail might be
helpful. Put a few weights on the bottom of the sign, so it won't
blow up. (A hint, try to make it face the road, so that passing
motorists will catch a glimpse of your handiwork.) Viola! Freedom
of speech at its finest! There isn't a better way to let the world
know that you think of the police (Spraypaint is too easy) and to
involve the school's reputation as well!
Anyhow, that's it for me. I got one killer English ISU to work on.
Keep F.I.T. & have fun..
