Snipe hunt

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A snipe hunt, also known as a fool's errand or wild goose chase, is usually one of a class of practical jokes that involves experienced people making fun of newcomers by giving them an impossible or imaginary task.

Inexperienced campers or hunters are told about a bird or animal called the snipe as well as a (usually ridiculous) method of catching it, such as running around the woods carrying a bag or making strange noises. Since the supposed snipe doesn't exist, the hunt never succeeds, no matter how foolishly the newcomer acts.

There are actually species of birds called snipes, but they are found primarily in wetlands, while the joke is invariably played in wooded areas. Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina [1] portrays real snipe hunts.

Variations

There are many variations on this prank, including:

• A fool's errand in the UK or Australia involves sending newcomers on a work site to fetch nonexistent tools, such as a left-handed screwdriver or wrench, a metric shifter, a can of striped or chequered paint, fallopian tubing (a popular prank in hospitals), a cheesewire sharpener (in kitchens), an alternating current battery, a unipolar magnet, a tube of elbow grease, a bucket of sparks for the grinding machine, a box of bubbles or box of holes, a bucket of steam, a skirting board ladder, or a 'round tuit'.
• The long stand (or weight/wait) in UK schools involves a teacher sending a pupil — usually picked for being annoying as much as for gullibility — to another teacher for "a long stand". When the pupil arrives and delivers the request, they are asked to wait (usually in full view of the class).
• In American schools, a new student is often sent to find something that does not exist, such as a swimming pool located on an upper floor of a building. An actual occurrence of the top floor swimming pool prank, in which new students were being sold tickets to the nonexistent swimming pool, was related by Guy L. Steele in the 1983 publication of The Hacker's Dictionary. This was also seen in the movie Hackers.
• In the Boy Scouts of America it is common for first-time attendees at a camporee (a large weekend event) to be sent after a "left-handed smoke-shifter," supposedly a branch with a fan on the end used to deflect smoke from a campfire. Another such gag practiced by Californian Scouts is to send them looking for a "bacon stretcher." In the Southeast, Scouts are routinely sent searching for "teflon coated sponges" to clean dutch ovens. Others have been told to plug a radio or some other electronic device into the electrical outlet behind the tree.
• In the Air Force a variant involves new airmen being sent to the commissary to purchase a bottle of prop wash (prop wash is turbulent airflow coming from the aft end of a propeller). Other military snipe hunts include sending someone for keys to a drop zone, box of grid squares, a length of flight line, blinker fluid, lanyard grease, winter air for tires, sparkplugs for a diesel engine, canopy lights, BA-1100 November (= Balloon) type batteries, TR-2E (= tree) or ST-1 (= stone) weapons equipment, "afterburner flints," and lightstick batteries. Sometimes commissaries will get into the act and prepare things like bottles labeled "prop wash", and so on to sell to unsuspecting victims.
• A US Army variation is to send a soldier in search of a Priky-7, a non-existent object that sounds like an older military slang term for a radio (PRC-# is part of the nomenclature for many radios). After being sent to several non-commissioned officers (i.e. sergeant), he is finally sent to a Sergeant First Class (an E-7 pay grade). That sergeant explains why he isn't looking for a prick E-7, but a Priky-8, and is sent looking for the company's First Sergeant (an E-8 pay grade). Other variations in the army include searching for non-existent "Chem stick batteries".
• In the US Navy, a new arrival is frequently sent to the bosun's locker for 2 fathoms of water line or informed that he is to stand "mail buoy watch" on the stern. The golden rivet is a favorite in many navies around the world, as are radar contacts. A bucket of propeller pitch is also popular.
• In addition to being sent for a non-existent item, sometimes the entire staff will be in on the joke. In the Navy, for example, the rookie may be told to go down to the engine room for 30 feet of fallopian tube. Someone in the engine room will tell him it's in the kitchen, a kitchen worker will say it's on the deck, and so on, and so on. Another variation is for "keys to the ship" so that CO can get underway.
• In Dutch offices, newcomers are often sent to fetch the "folder of missing documents", or a "plinth ladder".
• New employees at Brazilian firms may be asked to do tasks like fetching "round envelopes" for sending "circular letters" (memos), but most such practical jokes lose their meaning when translated to English. Another variation is to have the newcomer try to file a document in a "circular file cabinet", which is a term for a waste basket. This tradition is dwindling, as most companies strongly disapprove of it.
• Housing construction crews in the USA occasionally send new hires to the business on a hunt for a "rafter jack", a "sky hook" or a "board stretcher".
• In auto mechanics, a newcomer may be sent to find a nonexistent item like "frequency grease", "muffler bearings", or "turn signal fluid" (which is claimed to be a fluid that facilitates the flow of electrons through the turn signal flasher relay in a car). Others are sent to the tool room to get the ID10T (idiot) tool.
• Firefighters are notorious for subjecting rookie firefighters to these sort of pranks, such as sending a rookie to feed a nonexistent owl who lives somewhere in the firehouse, then spraying him with water while he is trying to find the owl, or sending him to look for a "water hammer". See The Little Red Book of Firehouse Pranks by Jeff Hibbard (ISBN 0966781007)
• In old theater companies, new stage hands would be asked to go wash the colored gel papers that fit over stage lights. When the papers were still made of gelatin, they would melt under water, and the stagehands would think they had done something wrong. Colored gels are now made out of cellophane, and the joke has been lost.
• In German handcraft, newcomers are sent to fetch a "Siemens Lufthaken" which translates to English as "Siemens sky hook". Often this joke is made when trying to drill a hole into the wall turns out to be impossible. Then sky hooks are required to attach the painting, board, or whatever to the wall.
• In marching bands, a new member of the percussion section may be sent to retrieve the "cymbal key," a non-existent device for "tuning" cymbals.
• A current errand is sending the victim in a computer store for a "couple of meters of WLAN cable".
• New hires in the grocery business are often sent to shake the Italian salad dressing, to feed the lobsters (which don't need to be fed), or to find some more watermelon bags.
• In Norway and Iceland it is common to ask newcomers to go get some vacuum, or a bucket full of vacuum (meaning to go get nothing.)
• In Canadian restaurants, the "newbie" (inexperienced kitchen aid) is often sent to another nearby restaurant to request to borrow the "bacon stretcher".
• In television, production interns or other non-technical or inexperienced people are sent in search of someone from engineering in order to procure the chroma key to open the genlock.
• In Bavaria, tourists—preferrably from North-Western Germany (viz, Prussia)—were taken on extended expeditions to search for chamois eggs, or on all-night Wolpertinger stakeouts.
• In crafting circles in Sweden, it is popular to send someone looking for a "synvinkel" or an "ögonmått", this supposedly being some kind of measuring tool. ("Synvinkel" is a reference to a set square, which is "vinkeljärn" in Swedish. The expression "synvinkel" actually means "point of view" though. "Ögonmått" is similar.)
• In hotels, one variation is to send the victim to a room that does not exist.
• In baseball, young batboys are sent to find the keys to the batter's box; umpires are usually in on the joke.

Popular culture

Variations of snipe hunts are a common plot device in comic literature, including:

• In the premiere episode of the US cartoon Doug, the titular character is pressured by bully Roger Klotz into searching a local pond for a "neematoad." The name is most likely a reference to the roundworm, a member of the phylum Nematoda.
• In the machinima comedy series Red vs Blue, the newly arrived Private Donut is sent to the "store" for elbow grease and headlight fluid.
• In an episode of the cartoon Ren and Stimpy, the pair join the Scouts and are sent on a snipe hunt which Stimpy successfully completes, to Ren's chagrin.
• In an episode of King of the Hill, Bobby and his friends are sent on a snipe hunt and wind up injuring an endangered whooping crane, believing it to be a snipe.
• In the first episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, "Help Wanted", SpongeBob is sent off to look for a "nonexistent" spatula, (a hydrodynamic spatula with port and starbord attachments and turbo drive) which he finds.
• In an episode of Cheers, the guys at the bar take Frasier snipe hunting in the woods, and drive off, leaving him. On his return, he manages to convince the others that he had a great time, and fools them into going on another snipe hunt.
• In the DC Comics mini-series JLA: Year One, Green Lantern asks the naive to the surface world Aquaman to find a "bulb wrench".
• In the episode "Great Snipe Hunt" from the cartoon Camp Lazlo, Lumpus sends the Bean Scouts on a snipe hunt.
• In the daily comic FoxTrot by Bill Amend, the characters Jason and Peter send their father on a snipe hunt in the woods outside of Uncle Ralph's Cabin.de:Ausbildungsinitiationsritus