As someone who didn’t participate in a senior prank or even remember there being one at my high school — maybe I was having a little independent off-site learning experience at the mall that day — the caper pulled off at that Peninsula school is everything a prank should be.

It was funny. Nobody got hurt. Nothing got vandalized. And everybody who has heard about it is slapping their forehead and wondering why they didn’t think of such a thing first.

For those who missed out on the Friday hijinks, students mixed a little high-tech know-how with a larger dose of creative ingenuity to keep teachers waiting hours after the morning bell for classes to arrive. Unbeknownst to them, near four dozen merry pranksters used an auto dialing system to call 1,700 families at 6:40 a.m. with the announcement that a power failure meant school wouldn’t start until 9:50 a.m. that day.

News coverage after the fact detailed how students collected $150 from classmates, gave the auto dialing company a list of names from the school directory, floated the idea by a few parents who gave the thumbs up and waited for their moment of infamy.

Perfect.

Administrators, it seems, were doubly floored because they thought the senior prank had already passed when approximately 30 plastic traffic signs appeared on the school roof. Not only were these students smart enough to think up a prank that beats the pants off the tired toilet-papering the hallways and setting off the fire alarms routines but they even threw in a little diversionary tactic.

Even more perfect.

The only thing more amazing than the prank itself is how more than 40 teenagers were able to keep quiet and not spill the beans before Friday morning. Even the humor-intolerant who can’t digest the idea that the way these students outwitted adults is pretty funny — not to mention inherently cool — has to begrudgingly admit amazement at their ability to keep their lips sealed.

Senior pranks are getting harder and harder to pull off without detection by school surveillance cameras and astute adults or criminal charges. Students at another Peninsula high school are facing a hefty bill after placing glue in school locks. Not only is that idea a little run-of-the mill it broke a cardinal prank rule: It caused damage. In 2007, a Palo Alto High School student was arrested on suspicion of felony vandalism after leaving a spray-painted Volvo upside down on the school’s grounds. Officials estimated the damage at approximately $3,000. Supporters cried foul and the prank turned into a debate about whether it should be punished or recognized as a senior rite of passage.

Some pranks are less open to interpretation. Anything involving chemical bombs or explosives in the drinking fountain are never a good idea. Students falling off the roof while trying to paint the school also not so laudable. Kidnapping hoaxes and stealing administrators’ vehicles are both ways to land in jail rather than in the annals of school lore.

In comparison to these ideas, Menlo-Atherton’s prank is even more impressive for its ability to stand out without risk of death, dismemberment, incarceration or even the ire of freed farm animals.

All in all, Menlo-Atherton made a good call.

Actually, 1,700 good calls.

Michelle Durand’s column “Off the Beat” runs every Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached by

e-mail: michelle@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 102. What do you think of this

column? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.