Practical Jokes

So I started to wonder why is a practical joke called a "practical joke"? There does not seem to be anything practical about it. Dictionary.com gives one definition as "mindful of the results, usefulness". Most people who make an art of doing practical jokes are not always "mindful of the results" nor do I feel they are ever useful. Occasionally they might be entertaining but usually not to the victim.

Years ago I worked with a person who constantly, like daily, did practical jokes. For some reason I was his intended victim until one day I scared the bajeebers out of him. He was going through one of those spurts where he had to do something every day. Usually it was while I was on an important conference call. His goal was to scare me so I'd scream and be embarrassed. Occasionally he achieved that goal. I was sharing my daily events with Gary when he said "you know, another person would consider this constant barrage of jokes as harassment". My response was, "hmmmmm".

The next day when I finally found the rotted banana he had hidden in my cubicle, after 2+ weeks of trying to find out where that smell was coming from, I took it to his cube. When he finished laughing I innocently said, "Last night when I was talking with my husband. You met him once. Yes the BIG strong looking guy. Anyway, we were talking and in his opinion, he feels that your constant jokes are a form of harassment. AND, he isn't very happy about it." The man's face went white, I saw exactly what fear looks like on someone and in this case it brought me great joy.

He never played another practical joke on me. He also avoided my husband. My question is: did I play a practical joke on the practical joker? Let me know what you think.