WooOOOOooooOOOoo.

I gave up my office upstairs, and in return got a wireless mouse that I don't use. 

It was a sensible decision. I almost never have online meetings or business calls; I have never seen the faces nor heard the voices of most of the people I work for. It's all e-mail, and that suits me. But my wife has constant online meetings and calls, and the distraction of baby puppy Izzy was too dangerous. She could very easily be on an important call that suddenly turned into a Korean-expert-on-the-Beeb situation, our dog rushing in to play, me (unshowered) flailing in after him and tripping on something.

It made sense to trade offices with her. Hers was downstairs, where the dining room would be if we had a dining room, and mine was directly above it in the spare bedroom. Izzy is not allowed upstairs during business hours, and a gate on the stairs enforces the rule. So, we made the swap. 

I had to leave a lot of stuff upstairs -- my books, my posters, my framed photos of the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers and, oh, some family members -- and in exchange she left her old wireless mouse. The kind where you plug a USB nub into the computer and the mouse sends it the signal. 

Well, I tried it, and I didn't much like it. BUT I had an idea for a prank. 

First: Sneak upstairs and stick the nub in her computer (and no, that's not a euphemism). She has a Mac, so all the USB ports are in the back where they are not visible. Next: Remove her mouse's nub. Third: Change her computer's wallpaper to a Ouija board.  

Then I wait. When she sits down at her computer, I start moving the mouse she left me around on the ceiling, hoping it will point to various things on the board. It would be great if I could spell out something, like R-U-N or G-E-T-O-U-T or M-A-K-E-M-E-A-S-A-M-M-I-C-H, but there's no way I could do that, even if I sneaked a spy camera into the room so I could see what I was doing. I'd have to be happy with commandeering the pointer and making it look like a specter was trying to get her attention.

Thing is, I don't even know if the signal from the mouse can penetrate the ceiling. I'd need a second pair of eyes to check. Unfortunately there's no accomplice handy to help, except Izzy, and he's A) not allowed upstairs during the day, B) a bad liar, and C) a dog. My prank will have to wait until I get some flunkies to help. 

Maybe I'll put an ad on Craigslist: Henchmen Wanted. No Pay, Just Laughs. Worked for the Joker!