One of my good friends from UT was a guy named Russell. We met online first and then found out that we were in one of the same classes, oddly enough. Anyway, Russell was in NROTC, and he also liked watching movies, so we often discussed movies in our online chats. Some of the movies we both liked are Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (which I like because I'm a film student and Kubrick is my favorite director, and which Russell likes because it's a war movie), Star Wars (because we're both geeks like that), and Fight Club (which I like because of the amazing visual sfx, Foley, and camera choreography; and which Russell likes because he's a guy).
Anyway, in one of our online discussions once, Russell told me that he had a terrible crush on Natalie Portman. Naturally, I began teasing him. I remembered an episode of "The Drew Carey Show" in which Oswald found a poster of Farah Fawcett in Drew's closet, and he wanted to know why the lips were worn off it. I told Russell about that episode and proceeded to make jokes about posters of Natalie Portman in one of her Star Wars costumes with various areas worn off. Russell made some comment about how that probably wouldn't be too far from the truth if he did have such a poster, and I joked that I would find him one and send it to him. "You'd love that, wouldn't you?" I typed. Russell immediately responded, "More like [me] love [it] long time," in reference to that scene in Full Metal Jacket with the Vietnamese hooker who says in broken English, "Me love you long time. Me sucky sucky.") Anyway, I found that very amusing, so I told the whole story to my then-boyfriend, Michael (who used to be in NROTC himself, incidentally), and also knew the scene from Full Metal Jacket. He said, "No, it wouldn't be 'me love you long time,' it'd be 'meesa love you long time.'" I laughed hysterically and relayed it back to Russell, who was amused, and foolishly thought that was the end of it.
For a couple of months, the Natalie Portman joke festered as nothing more than a joke. I told a lot of people about it and they all thought it was funny, but sooner or later, Michael and I decided, we would have to actually find a poster of a scantily clad Natalie Portman, "autograph" it, and mail it to Russell. Unfortunately, the only posters of Natalie Portman I could find were thirty-five dollars or so, well out of my range. Then Michael's old printer broke for good, and he bought a much nicer new one, which could print in color. This, we realized, posed a potential solution for our Natalie Portman prank. I looked around online for pictures of Natalie Portman and found a few that could work, but there was still the problem of actually conveying whatever we created to Russell. Then something interesting happened. One Friday night Russell put up an away message telling everyone to make fun of his friend Doug because he was asleep at only 11:30 on a Friday night, so I IMed Doug and said that Russell had told me to make fun of him, so I did. The following day, Doug IMed me, wanting to know who I was, so I told him I was a friend of Russell's. Doug and I started chatting, and he told me that he and Russell were rooming together next year. It didn't occur to me at the time, but eventually this turned out to be the perfect way to get Russell's picture to him.
A couple of months dragged by and the next school year began. Russell and Doug were now rooming together, and Doug, Michael, and I began to plot seriously. I found a picture of Natalie Portman posing for Esquire on the Internet and sent it to Michael, who edited it so it looked like it had been autographed thusly:
So he printed out the picture and gave it to me, and I framed it and gave it to Doug the following Wednesday. On Thursday, which was when NROTC had drill (from 2-5 p.m.), Doug put it on the table in the midshipmen's lounge in the ROTC building and positioned it so that it was facing the door, so that it would be the first thing anybody who walked in would see. I waited nervously online all evening for Russell to IM me with some sort of "interesting" comment. Finally, around ten o'clock or so, he messaged me. All he really said was "Thanks for the picture."
He must have appreciated it, though, because he kept it next to his bed forever afterwards.