No doubt about it: I am an April Fool

April 1, 2011 in Holidays
Tags: April Fools Day, baseball, Bronx Zoo cobra, Red Sox, snowstorms

It feels like a Monday but today is Friday, April 1st. And the joke is on everyone in “my neck of the woods” with an April Fools Day Nor’easter. We got five inches overnight so I’m using that as an excuse to have a work-in-my-pajamas-day. So far, no practical jokes have come my way and I’ve yet to perpetrate any – but I’m working on that!

Besides the snow, here are a few of the pranks I’ve come across so far:

• Gmail Motion
• LinkedIn Connections (see photo, Exhibit A)
• YouTube 1911 anniversary videos
• Google job for autocompleter
  

  Linked In People You May Know - Exhibit A

   

A couple of years ago my kids played a practical joke me on April first by putting a rubber band around the sink hose so when I turned on the faucet, I got hit in the face with a blast of water. Fun!

Somewhere around here I have a sheaf of papers downloaded and printed from the Internet with the top ideas for April foolery. As typical, it’s buried in a pile of detritus and won’t be unearthed in time. I can’t remember which pile to go through. My piles have piles now. But that’s a subject for another time (still under the heading of I’m an April Fool).

I’m contemplating a few pranks of my own here but nothing ingenious has sprang to mind yet. Hoping a great notion will present itself soon. That’s one of the mysterious and fascinating elements of creativity – you never know what will trigger the brainstorm or when it will hit. Unlike the snowstorm that can be predicted days in advance now. But weather prediction is a science and pranks are an art (which sometimes involves science).

My dad worked at the now-defunct Bethlehem Steel research labs (now part of Lehigh University). He and his brainy co-workers perpetrated many a prank upon one another, including but not limited to planting cherry bombs under one another’s car hoods. Needless-to-say, that today kind of prank would be met with an army of homeland security officials and local law enforcement raining down on him.

Need ideas for pranks? There are websites galore. View past episodes of Pranked and Jackass. And try not to get sued. Or fired.

What am I most looking forward to?

1. The start of baseball season and especially, as a Red Sox fan, another year of believing they can do it again. Hope springs eternal in Red Sox nation (and it’s only until October when we find out whether we’ve been fooled or not!)
2. Spring blooming and the riot of color that will come along with that show
3. The opportunity to begin shedding layers and wearing lighter clothes (and getting to turn down or turn OFF the thermostat and open the windows!)
4. Getting outside for walks
5. My calendar filling up with fabulous events, celebrations and opportunities for personal and professional growth (April Fools!) No, seriously, it’s kind of true.

And then, finally, this April Fools Day comes the news that our favorite snake-in-the-news (and on Twitter @bronxzooscobra – hilarious and clever) has been found hiding out in the reptile house at the Bronx Zoo.  Still to be determined: the butt of that joke…

Here’s hoping your first day of April is all that you want it to be – prank-free or full of pratfalls, goofballs and fools.

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