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Folks, I simply love a prank where a young person manipulates their parents' home, which has probably remained unchanged for decades, and sees how long it takes them to notice. First, there was the woman who tacked a Cheez-It to the wall in her dad's place, where it went unnoticed for four years.

Now, Kristen Vogler joins the hall of fame with her quarantine prank, in which she replaced one picture a day from her parents' picture wall with a crayon drawing of that picture. She nearly got through the entire wall, and then she went viral on Facebook. It's the best.


This is her parents' picture wall in its original state.

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Kristen writes on Facebook, "I started poorly recreating the framed photos on our wall with top notch art supplies, aka a box of crayons. Every day I replaced a new photo with a new and terrible crayon drawing.

"Sneaking these masterpieces up was not easy. I had to hide in the bathroom clutching the frames multiple times. It took [my parents] 11 days to notice that anything had changed. I find that concerning."

She started with the bottom righthand corner.

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"Day 1," she writes. "The first crayon drawing is placed, bets were made on how many photos and how long it would take them to notice." It's hard. When you walk by a wall like that all the time, you're just not really paying attention, you know? You register that it's there, then you move on.

Next, she moved clockwise.

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"Day 2. After FaceTiming with my grandparents (the subjects of my first crayon replica) for an hour near this wall, I decided to add another piece while my parents took a walk," Kristen writes. Listen, she's recreating these pictures flawlessly with crayons. I don't know how she expected her parents to notice. The crayon drawings are indistinguishable from the real pictures.

For Day 3, Kristen tried to choose the least noticeable picture.

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"Day 3. Up to three crayon artworks now and still not even a glance. That door on the left? It’s used multiple times a day," Kristen writes. It's not as if this is in some remote corner of their house. They walk by this wall dozens of times a day. At this point, Kristen is beside herself.

Recreating the smallest one on the bottom row was Kristen's Day 4 project.

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I mean, if they didn't notice on Day 3, I don't think this is going to help them out. However, Day 4 turned out to be a close call. Kristen writes, "Day 4. Thought I would get caught today. I had been posting on Twitter about my progress and my mom chose today to try to start a twitter account to talk to John Krasinski about Some Good News but luckily her account was locked."

Day 5 was when Kristen took it to the top row.

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She writes, "Day 5. At this point it was getting harder to pick photos I thought weren’t noticeable plus I felt like I smelled like crayons constantly." Crayons do have a very distinct smell. Still, I think she's doing a very good job of picking the ones her parents are least likely to notice.

Kristen got better and better at sneaking the drawings onto the wall.

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"Day 6," she writes. "After getting a ton of rain for days I was needing to get sneakier to be able to add these to the wall. I think today I convinced my mom to go for a run before it rained haha."

Kristen told Bored Panda that she'd been planning try out this prank for months, and it wasn't until quarantine that she suddenly had time to do it. However, I have to imagine that having everyone home all the time made it harder to accomplish. Still, Kristen persevered.

On Day 7, Kristen had to recreate two family Christmas cards.

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She writes, "Day 7. Today was a twofer with these classic Christmas photos. At this point, I was starting to think I should have guessed based on weeks and not days for how long it would take them to notice."

I don't know how she kept her cool and went about her daily life while knowing that those pictures were up there. I would have probably given it away after the second day.

Kristen was still going strong on Day 8.

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"Day 8. I legit did not think I would get this far, but here we are," she writes. At this point, there are — count 'em — four pictures left that she hasn't replaced with a crayon drawing.

Kristen replaced the portrait in the top right corner on Day 9.

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Kristen writes, "Day 9. Only three left to go before my work is complete. I should probably take a moment to apologize to my art teachers. You tried really hard to teach me to draw people, and this is what I’ve done."

On Day 10, Kristen had no choice but to start in on the portraits on the left side.

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"Day 10. Happy Easter. My mom was nice enough to hide Easter eggs for me, in return I did this to the photo of her first born," she writes. At this point, there are only two photos left!

Kristen almost got caught putting this portrait up on Day 11.

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She writes," Day 11. I almost got caught hanging this one up. Had to hide in the bathroom but they still didn’t notice." Later that day, though, her mom finally, confusedly looked at the wall.

Kristen captured the moment on video.


It's truly a joy to watch her parents figure it out. They were absolutely stunned. It boggled their mind that she'd been doing this for so long and that they didn't realize a thing. "Please tell me you just did that," her mom says at one point. Still, Kristen wasn't quite done.

Kristen had come so close to replacing them all. Plus, she needed closure.

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Not to mention, her sister Kerri felt left out, since she was the only one left. So Kristen dutifully completed the set, even after her parents discovered what she'd done. "Day 12," she writes. "I needed closure, Kerri wanted to be included."

This is a prank that belongs in the history books. I hope a museum curates a collection of Kristen's drawings. This is truly a work of art, from beginning to end. I hope Kristen is aware of how much joy she's brought to people's lives with this incredible work she's done. Brava.

This article originally appeared four years ago.

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A gay man in Vegas was approached by a 40-year-old stranger asking for advice on raising his son

A gay man in Vegas was approached by a 40-year-old stranger asking for advice on raising his son

Jack Remmington got a surprise he says he’ll never forget. While playing the slots in Las Vegas he and his friend were approached by a middle-aged man they had never met who wanted to know if they were gay. Although it was a relatively safe public space, you never know what might happen in a city fueled by alcohol, sex and gambling.

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Instead, the man who approached Remmington wanted to ask some perfectly wholesome advice about communicating with his young son whom he thinks is probably still in the closet. Remmington wrote about the interaction on his Twitter page and the breakdown has quickly gone viral for the best reasons. “Ok I just experienced the nicest exchange with a stranger and think it’ll help to share: I was playing on the Mariah Carey slots in Vegas (naturally) and a friendly circa-mid-40s ish guy sat down to play on the machine next to me,” Remmington wrote.

"I was sitting with @marcoalessifilm, both wearing pink (naturally) and after chatting a little to the guy about Vegas, he nervously asked if he could ask us a question. I knew where this was gonna go as it always does so did a bit of an inner eye roll but indulged him anyway."

"He then asked if we were together so we said no (we’re best friends and he has a fab bf) and he asked if we were gay, so we said yes. He then said he thinks his 13 year old son might be gay and wondered if he could ask us how best for him to navigate that."

"He lit up when talking about his son, and I nearly started crying at how much he clearly loved him. The guy wanted to know how to make his son feel most comfortable about himself whilst not being too overt and glaringly obvious in forcing a conversation about his sexuality."

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"This man is SO sweet. From rural Arkansas and said whilst things are so much better now, he still just wants the world to be totally equal for his son. Marco and I said he sounds like he’s doing all the right things and that making his son know he’s loved is the best he can do."

"We both gave a couple of anecdotes from personal experience, largely relating to condoning abstract things when you see them like normalising conversations around gay kisses on TV or calling our family conversations that might shame potential queerness."

"We also mentioned not accidentally policing things so as to shame him - for instance, often out of a sense of protection and love parents can frown on a child’s behaviour or outfit because they’re worried for their safety when on a night out etc."

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"But we stressed that if this was their feeling it’s important to vocalise this exactly, rather than leaving the child ruminating over the parent’s intentions and second guessing why they said what they said."

"So in terms of advice to friends or relatives of a potentially queer person, what would fellow queers advise is the best way to make it known they have their love and support without causing an uncomfortable conversation that might force someone to come out before they’re ready?"

You can read the whole thing on Remmington’s Twitter thread, here.

While it’s understandable that he and his friend were apprehensive about being approached, the exchange goes a long way toward showing we should never make too many hard assumptions about people based on their appearances alone.

Even in 2024, not every parent, child or friend has a safe space to educate themselves on LGBTQ issues.

Obviously, it would be ideal if this random guy had a friend, family member, or educator who could give him the advice he was looking for but we have to salute Remmington for being so generous and kind in his response. There’s so much we can learn from each other when we take the time to ask questions -- and listen.

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“My first impression was that he seemed nice as he chatted which is more than what tends to happen with people you sit next to in Vegas at the slots. That said, I didn’t expect it to take this turn at all,” Remmington said in an interview with Bored Panda.

“The relationship between him and his son has a 100% future – he was a wonderful and caring man, despite what he said was quite a difficult town to grow up in if you’re at all different. I wish all fathers could be like him.”

This article was originally published five years ago.

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