Prank You Notes

Boy oh boy, today is gonna be a great day! Why? Because, silly heads, it is my most favorite day of the year! The one day that it is completely okay to lie at someone's face and then when they believe the lie you just told, you get to laugh at them! Hard. For a long time. Then you get to call them an idiot. And embarrass them! Plus, you can just keep laughing and never feel bad about it because it is a world-endorsed holiday. It is "a day which tolerates practical jokes and general foolishness," says Wikipedia. And as always, Wikipedia is right. For today is...Secretary's Day!

 April Fools! (It's April Fools' Day.)

And boy oh boy, have I got some good general foolishness to spread around this year.

First thing on the agenda -- I am going to give out little boxes that look like "presents" to all the individuals I come in contact with. And when each individual asks me what's inside, I will say, "Well I'll tell you one thing, it is NOT a bomb. I swear on the grave of the recently-deceased-turtle-at-my-office this is not a bomb. It is a present tied with a pretty bow. Go ahead, open it." And when they do, it explodes and black bomb dust gets on their face and they run off crying to Papa Smurf because IT WAS A BOMB!!!! HAAAHAHAAAAAAA! Funny stuff. Funny. Funny.

Another "good one" I plan on pulling off is writing a false status update on the ol' FB. Yeah, you heard me. Something COMPLETELY UNTRUE. Hehehe. For example, I might write, "Oh man, just ate chili cheese fries from Del Taco." (Psst...I DIDN'T!!) Or I might post something like, "Hey does anyone want an Ikea dresser? It's practically new. But you have to find a way to come and pick it up cuz I don't have a truck or anything." (Shhh, hehehe...totally wrong! My husband HAS A TRUCK!! Sneaky prank-faced move!) Or I could even pull off the ultimate stunt: changing my profile picture to a photo of me with a crazy blue wig on. And underneath is the caption: "New Haircut." (HA! Not really my hair!!!)

Some other ideas I have bouncing around are:

1)  Sending a mass email to everyone I know, asking for money to start a new theater company! That's funny because I once did that for reals--but this time it's fake. Get it?

2)  Telling everyone in the office that the office turtle is dead. But he's just sleeping!
      R.I.P. Short Stack, the "office turtle". March 28, 2011

3)  Giving my vegetarian friend a hamburger and saying it's made of soy meat. Then after they eat it all I tell them the truth :) hi-LARIOUS.

4)  Asking someone for money to ride the bus, and then using that bus money to buy methamphetamine. (Can't take all the credit for that one. Got the idea from some pretty funny junkies that hang around a quaint/ramshackle/bulletproof glass-encased liquor store in San Pedro (aka Charles Bukowskitown).

Those are some good funnies, huh? You think I am the ultimate prankster right now, don't you? Well I am pretty good that's for sure. But don't order me an Oscar-esque, plastic trophy engraved "Best Supporting Pranktor" just yet. I have also been on the receiving end of many a masterful April Fool practical joke in my day. And I have to give it to these crafty fellows. They got me good!

The best example I can give of a real April Fools' master at work was a certain ADHD-ravaged, wizard of a boy from my second grade class. This young genius stacked 5 lunch pails on top of each other against a brick wall and told me to stand on them. He told me to look over the wall and check if an ice cream truck was there. Well I, being a bit of a genius myself, quickly obliged. Ice cream!!! So close to school??!! This I gotta see. But once atop the tin tower, I immediately noticed that there was (of course) no ice cream truck to be seen. And before I could let the news be known to the other kids, I felt an ADHD foot-filled shoe kick me in the butt. Both the lunch pails and I toppled into a heap, crying. (yes the lunch pails were crying too!) As I hobbled away to the nurse's office on what I would soon discover to be a cracked tailbone, I heard an ADHD-powered tongue scream, "April Fools'!!!". Touché, young man. Touché.

Fortunately for the joy of humans everywhere, jokes like these are not reserved for adolescent boys under the age of twelve. Nope. There are lots of people who keep right on pranking each and every April 1st--long after their thirteenth birthday and well into their Lexus buying, pumpkin ravioli eating, Dave n Busters happy-hour drinking, MMA watching, art-opening attending, Netflix streaming, youtube sketch comedy making, bar method attending, serious adult days. Why, personal examples from the past five years alone are hard to count.

There was the time one of my customers at a restaurant wrote $1,000,000 into the tip line of their credit card receipt and then crossed it out and noted "April Fools!" But then didn't write an amended, real amount. That was pretty darn funny. And the instance where someone handed me a beer they had spit in. The time a friend called pretending to be a commercial agent that wanted to sign me. Oh, and the time my coworkers hid my wallet so that I thought it was stolen.

And even as recently as this morning, this VERY April Fools' Day, I was pranked by a fake billboard on the side of the highway promoting a phony show that supposedly stars Toni Collette with a gap in her teeth, wearing funny hats and doing different silly voices--pretending to have super stereotypical, mulit-personalities. HA! (But I'm no dummy. I caught on to this joke right away. They couldn't fool me! No one would watch such a stupid show. NO ONE. Nice try, "Showtime".)

Wikipedia states that April Fools' Day has been around since Chaucer's era, or perhaps before. That's a long time! Longer than Secretary's Administrative Professionals Day even! This is VERY good news for me and all the rest of you April Fools' Day enthusiasts. Cuz it sure as heck seems like this day is here to stay. And thank goodness! Because boy oh boy, nothing is funnier than a day full of blatant lying -- sending our thin layer of trust in others and that deep-down need to believe that people are essentially good and well-meaning into a complete tailspin. HHEEEEEHHHEEEEHAHAAAHAAAA!!! I'm LOLing so hard I'm afraid I'll puke. I wish this day would never end!***   

***April Fools!! (This day should be punched in the face. Worst day of the year.)