I stole my small town’s traffic cones for the sake of an epic prank

I stole my small town’s traffic cones for the sake of an epic prank. This happened in the small town where I grew up. I think it was the summer going into my senior year of high school. It was a small town where nothing much ever happened, and we relied on making our own fun for the most part. I had just gotten my license, and having a car completely changed my life. It made everything so much easier. I had gotten really good at sneaking in and out of the house without waking my parents, so most nights my friends and I would cruise around after midnight looking for something to do.<br>We took to stealing the town’s traffic cones, not because we needed them for anything in particular, but because we knew it would piss off the city employees. They recently painted all the traffic cones with the city logo as a way to deter the citizens from taking them, because we would sometimes take them to mark our parking spots at school, or use them for a party. We knew they were painting all of them, so one night we decided to steal them all. We took all of the cones from the entire town in one night. We were in a frenzy and didn’t even stop to think about how we were going to use them all. We just stockpiled them in a dead end street that wasn’t claimed by the city. <br><br>The next night we really got to work. We put cones on every street we could, in the middle of the road. We put cones on the corners. We made traffic islands with the cones. We lined all the side walks with the cones. We even made a giant cone slalom to be driven through. We worked all night to cone off as much of the town as we could. When we were done, we drove around to survey our work. Every street was lined with cones, and there were islands of cones everywhere. It was beautiful. I had never seen anything like it. We drove to the main intersection in the middle of town and made a huge traffic cone circle. We put all of our cars in the middle. It was 4am when we finally went to bed.<br><br>The next morning my mom told me to turn on the news. The headline was “Town overrun by cones overnight. City officials have no leads in finding culprit.” It was fucking hilarious. They interviewed a bunch of people who had to maneuver around the cones to get to work. It was amazing. I held it in my entire time at breakfast. The news showed pictures of all the traffic cones blocking the streets. It was all so funny to me. The radio made a bunch of jokes that morning about the cone bandit, and how we must have had an entire team of people, and how there is no way it could have possibly been just one person. Listening to the radio at work made it so much worse. At one point they made the joke, “I guess you could say (our town’s name) is officially coned off.” It was too much for me, and I started laughing out loud. I had to pretend like I was in pain so my boss wouldn’t know I was laughing. I could barely hold myself together.<br><br>The city workers spent the entire day rounding up all the cones. It was a good thing they didn’t have anything else to worry about. They left them in stacks all along the side of the road until they could round up a flatbed trailer to put them all in. I had never seen that many cones in one place before. But my enjoyment was short lived. The following night, the cops were out in full force. I wasn’t aware, because I didn’t have any plans on getting in any more trouble that night, so I wasn’t cruising around. 3 of my friends got arrested that night, and the cops knew exactly who they were looking for. <br><br>When the cops showed up at my door, I already knew it was over. They asked if they could come in, and I told them I wasn’t comfortable with that. One of the cops told me he could smell marijuana coming from inside my house, and that they were going to search it. He didn’t smell anything, because I didn’t have anything. He was just trying to make me feel uncomfortable. I told them they couldn’t search my house without a warrant. They were very taken aback. They told me they were going to take me down to the station and ask me questions there. They put me in the back of the cop car, and took my phone. I had never been in any trouble with the law, so I had no idea what was going on, but I knew I had to keep quiet. I had learned in school the police can only actively interrogate you once you’ve been booked. Until then, any questions they ask you are casual conversation and can be used against you in court. I knew I had to keep my mouth shut until they booked me, so I made the long drive in silence. <br>Once I was booked, they took me to a room and asked me if I was ready to talk. I told them I wasn’t going to say anything until I had a lawyer present. They got pissed off and took me to my cell. About 10 minutes later, a very nice looking woman in a suit walked in. She introduced herself as my public defender, and told me if I wanted to be out in 24 hours, I was going to have to tell the cops everything they wanted to hear. I told her I wasn’t going to say anything until I had a real lawyer. She looked at me and scoffed. “Do you know how much a real lawyer costs?” She said. I told her my dad was a lawyer, and that he would take care of it. She got pissed off and left. <br><br>About 20 minutes later, my dad walked in. He looked very pissed off, but he said he would take care of it. I tried to tell him about everything that had happened, but he told me to save it for the car. He posted my bail, and we drove home in silence. When we got home, he asked me to tell him everything. I told him about all the nights of cruising, then about stealing the cones, and then about my night in jail. He was (rightfully) very pissed off. He grounded me for the rest of the summer, and made me pay him back the amount of my bail. I didn’t really care. I was still in shock from having to spend the night in jail. I wasn’t allowed to drive for the rest of the summer, and I wasn’t allowed to see any of my friends. I couldn’t go to my summer orientation at the college I got accepted to, so they took away my acceptance. They threatened to sue me for the cost of new traffic cones if I didn’t do 150 hours of community service, which I did at the animal shelter bathing dogs and cats. <br><br>I think the city employees were just glad to have something happen. I know the news didn’t talk about it for a small eternity. It was still a pretty big story even after they caught me. The news still covered it, and the radio still talked about it. It was a big deal. My friends who got arrested were also in a lot of shit. Two of them got community service. The other got probation. The cops impounded his car, and they found a small bag of mescaline in his center console. He had almost a gram, which made it a felony. All 4 of us are still friends, but we don’t talk much. I live in the next town over, so I don’t get to see them often. The town eventually forgot about the incident (which happened 8 years ago). <br><br>Edit: Wow, this blew up faster than I thought it would. Thank you to the 3k+ people who upvoted my story. Thank you to the hundreds who shared. Thank you to the people who awarded me. <br><br>Edit: Holy shit! I woke up to over 5k upvotes! Thank you!