April fools no one

As an avid jokester with many decades of experience, I have learned to finesse the dark arts of the April Fool’s prank. Despite years of efforts, I have yet to be caught unaware, for I am extra leery of anything on that day.

Yes, it is an all-day affair, though some insist it should be limited to the morning hours. Contrary to many people’s perspectives of the annual event whose shame endures in everlasting embarrassment, there are some jokes that do fail. I, sorrowfully so, have yet to feel that painful reminder of how gullible I am, leading to devious plans of revenge developed over months of silent agony suffered by my many victims.

I haven’t yet had my hand stuck to the door handle with Krazy Glue. Nor has a can of paint fallen on my head. I haven’t been too gullible to believe I had a million-dollar ticket in a fake lottery or set-up-to-win bingo game.

I can say that April lamesters who lie about the car being trashed or those who insist “it’s going to rain today so wear something waterproof” have ever even raised my eyebrow a micro-millimetre. It’s good to feel happy that the brunt of the joke usually almost always fell on the guy next to me as I realize that something is up before they do. Nope, nobody has ever caught me short on scepticism.

However, I did raise a few voices in excited belief when I mentioned that I won $10,000 at a lottery terminal in a downtown bar before letting loose with a gleeful April Fool! It’s just believable enough to seem true. It’s the fine balance that really does the trick to making tricks. When a gullible sucker bites the bait, reeling him in is pure joy.

Then there’s the physical joke, which is best when recorded for posterity to forever torment your victim. A classic is the saran wrap across the doorway before calling out, “Soup’s up!” Higher up the fool food chain is the python borrowed from the zoo and left in the bed or the less-traumatizing tarantula on the bookshelf scare. It does get funny like that, until you have to call the ambulance because the hapless victim was your granny.

My favourite animal joke was a long-in-the-planning prank that my uncle played on his brother. While setting snares for rabbits one winter, my uncle convinced my cousins and I to collect the little rabbit shits lying around. These he kept in the freezer until he carefully sewed them together into a cool beaded necklace. This was carefully put in a fancy box that he presented it to his brother on that fateful day.

The oohs and aahs about the beauty of the necklace were soon replaced with WTH! (We used the term Hell in those days.) Closer examination by my unsuspecting uncle produced the biggest WTH of all. The prankster giggled and opened a barrel of laughs from the rest of us who were in on the jewellery joke. The rest is history.

However, I think that Mother Nature has pulled the biggest joke of all this year, turning April into just another month of winter. The expectation of warm weather prods us into buying summer tires and spring jackets with plans of sidewalk shopping or uneventful car trips. Then she piles more winter on us. Even I was fooled by this one. Finally.