Better to be loved, or feared?

A great Machiavellian question to be sure. One of the many that he discussed in his book, The Prince, and I find myself confronted with it tonight. Do I want them to fear me, or love me so that they can come to know the greatness of betrayal later? All over a prank.

No, I'm not bitter, but I am toying with this on an intellectual scale. But let's back up to the beginning of the relevant parts tonight:

Richard asked me if I knew anything about plumming. In typical fashion I replied with my wits saying that if you flushed a toilet it goes down, if it doesn't go down it usually overflows and you should fix that. He gave me a helpless sort of look and I asked him what he needed, specifically. So he took me into the back to the sinks and said that the middle one wouldn't drain. I looked at the cook and asked him if there were any knives in there for obvious reasons. He said no and waived his hand through the water and moved the soap about so I could see the bottom. Always trying the obvious first, I went to drain the sink to see how stuck it was. As soon as I released the water, I knew it was a trap, in fact my interrupted thought process was "That was too fu..." cking easy would have been my finished thought... So I proceeded to be covered with a healthy amount of cold water. A fire of a rage and a goodly ammount of it directed at both Richard and Cameron, the one who actually orchestrated this manuever.

The first time that I have been pranked via a bucket of water, so I'd say that alone makes it blogworthy...

So to try and keep this short, (and without telling you the rest that unfolded) I told Richard that there are only two ways to attone (because earlier in the day I put pickle juice in his lemonade to get him back for the ketchup), he could either help me get payback or I could get him again. he would prefer to help, especially after I told him that my initial thought would be to wait for a few weeks until Ray came back from vacation, and then on my way out one night deflate his tires. Which would make him push the car accross the street to 7-11 to fill them up. He thought that would have been cruel. A good thing to hear for me.

But we've set some rules that should make it more difficult for me: No peanutt butter - Cameron's alergic, nothing may damage his hearing aides - he wears one to each ear - making the tactic he used on me off limits, and all of it is to be devoid of health/property damage to keep it all in good fun. And thus let the games begin.

So in the mood of things I pulled some things that should irritate the hell out of the openers in the morning. Switched a few things that will prove to be very irritable to those not paying attention. It makes me proud since the lot of them irritate the hell out of me... But the flip side is that I'll have to work at 11 AM... Oh, well, it'll be funny to see a tech come in tomorrow and tell them that their equipment is merely moved, not malfunctioning...