Happy April Fools Day, my friends! Some call it April Fools’ Day, others April Fool’s Day, and others All Fools Day. These are just the United States names for whatever this day is… the day is observed in Western-civilized countries, by mostly uncivilized people, and while the basic idea of the day is the same, it’s got many other different names.
First, roads: I ain’t foolin’ when I say that the drive is utterly dull. There are no hazards. I considered creating hazards, just to liven things up a bit, and excuse it in the name of our glorious holiday that’s not a holiday, but in the end decided not to. There’s no rain, no wind, no fog, no snow, no rocks, no ice, no chain control, no gravel hazards, no roadblocks, no checkpoints, no solar flares, nothin’. Just a lot of nothin’.
Again, no solar flares, but there was a fairly remarkable (astronomical, in fact!) crescent moon to be seen this morning. Which reminds me: when I become King of the World (or when I become a trillionaire, whichever comes first), one of my first pranks will be to hire Elon Musk’s company to put a really bright spotlight on the moon, and fire it up every April Fool’s Day, so that Earthlings will SWEAR that they see a star in the cusp of the crescent moon. Man… that’ll cause hilarious dissent between astronomers and regular ol’ folk. Good times!
So, today is all about the practical jokes, the gags, the tomfoolery and the everybodyelsefoolery.
The other pups from my litter have come up with some great gags over the years… I’ve mimicked some, too, with great results.
Like the time that Ldog was in the Navy, on a six-month tour at sea. He took an old pair of boots, and some old pants. He went into one of the bathroom stalls, and positioned the items juuuust so… so that it looked like somebody was in the stall, taking care of biz. He then locked the stall door, and crawled out through the under-door gap.
Next he went to work with his propaganda campaign… over the next few weeks, he spread the word to all who would listen. “Man… have you tried that new stall on deck four, towards the back? That thing is AMAZING! Best stall ever! TV screens, personal heater… phone… high-powered pneumatic toilet paper dispenser! It is awesome!”
Soon, there was demand from other sailors who wanted to try out the new stall. Unfortunately for them, it turned out that EVERY. SINGLE. TIME… that they tried to use that stall, there was already somebody in there occupying it.
That was quite a few years ago… Ldog has been a civilian for over 20 years now. However… the possibility exists that people are still waiting to take that stall for a spin.
Then, Pdog—occasional guest columnist here—found a pile of broken automotive glass somewhere… somebody had lost a car window. Well, Pdog grabbed a broom, and swept it up, saving it in a jar.
A few days later, his buddy was visiting Pdog at the house. When his buddy wasn’t looking, Pdog stole the keys to his friend’s car, rolled the window down, then sprinkled the broken glass all around. He returned to the house, then later happened to “notice” that “Hey! It looks like somebody broke into your car!”
I get that one: there really is great joy in watching the dismay in a friend’s face… great joy.
I’ve recreated both of these pranks myself, with smashing results. I can testify: this is good stuff!
At my corporate office, the restroom hallway has a shelf. Restroom visitors may place a notebook, a hat, or a coffee cup there, to be retrieved after business has been taken care of. Now, it seems that coffee cups are the most frequent shelf-sitters, which gave me an idea.
I went to yard sales, and collected as many coffee cups as I could find. Eventually my collection reached about 40 or 50 cups. I set to work.
Each day, I would place one or two new coffee cups on the shelf, and fill each with a little bit of coffee. Over the course of a week, there was a small crowd of cups. After a MONTH, the shelf was overflowing, and cups were even being placed on the floor. Each was dutifully refilled with enough liquid each day to keep them from drying out… as if to give them that “currently used” look.
People in the office started discussing this… how could SO many people have simply forgotten their coffee cups? Clearly, the World’s Best Mom, the Cat Lover, the person who “Will Work For Coffee,” the one who believes that “A Yawn is a Silent Scream for Coffee,” and somebody who believes that the way Jesus makes coffee is that Hebrews it, were all terribly forgetful people. But the real reward came one day when the office manager completely lost his cool over it. This was the one and only time I have ever seen him yell… and while he had no individual to yell at, no person who was certainly guilty, he still belted out his general admonition to his office of dopes. Clearly, in this office of 25 people, having 40 cups sitting there meant that this office must have a BUNCH of idiots in it. The poor office manager had to give a general hollerin’ to the entire office full of apparently forgetful, irresponsible coffee-cup-forgetters.
Anybody who has ever worked in an office environment knows that every now and then, SOMEBODY will leave their desk without carrying their phone. Sure enough, the phone will either ring… and ring… and andringandringandringandringandringandringandringandringandring … or, the alarm might go off ad infinitum AND infinitum, too. And, there’s nobody there to turn it off. Very annoying. Inspired, I took an armful of old cell phones and got ‘em ready. I had a few years’ worth of defunct tech laying around in junk drawers, so I gathered them up, charged ’em up, carefully cleared all identifying info from them, and then set the alarms. All alarms were set to go off at 10:10 AM.
I then carefully and discreetly left these phones all over the office. On unoccupied desks, in the lobby, in the restroom, in the breakroom. Of course, on the restroom/coffee cup shelf, too.
And, 10:10 AM was a great time. The annoyance and irritation was great… people tried to politely ignore it for a while, but soon the cacophony was too much. Of course, I had to express my own annoyance, too: it’s all part of the anonymity game. I had no intention of ever coming clean for that one… and still have no intention. Oddly enough, management took a very dim view of this particular prank, and actually tasked the HR department with weeding out the culprit. Over the next few days, every single person in the office was interviewed… nay, interrogated. Oddly, though, there was ONE exception… ONE person who was never interviewed. I’m pretty sure this was because the HR guy liked me (no, not in THAT way, you loons!), but had a pretty good idea of who might have perpetrated this stunt.
The police have actually been ALMOST involved a few times regarding office pranks… management here has never demonstrated a real strong sense of humor. In fact, in re-creating my brother’s stunt with the pants and shoes in a bathroom stall, I doubled down: I put TWO pairs of shoes, and their corresponding pants, in a bathroom stall… and positioned them so as to appear that two men were facing each other, very, very closely. A manager saw this, and after commanding the men to stop what they were doing and emerge, he instructed his assistant to call the police (I was unaware of this development at the time). Fortunately, the police declined to respond, as the police dispatcher was unable to see how the purported illicit activity constituted any crime, or posed any danger. The frustrated manager eventually gathered a small group of subordinates to go in like a Navy Seal Strike Team, and stop those men from doing whatever they were doing. Watching the strike team enter the restroom, and hearing the shouts from within that restroom, was one of the most glorious moments of my entire life. Second place might even have been seeing them emerge from the restroom with heads hung low, defeatedly carrying old pairs of boots and pants.
I’ve said enough. Don’t forget that this week (Wednesday) marks the start of decimal time here in the United States. If you have not yet converted your watches and clocks, now is the time to do so. Smartphones, and most “connected” digital devices will do so automatically. “Converter” faces are available for most analog timekeeping devices, like watches and wall clocks. Calendars will not yet be affected, only the time of day. At least from now on, Daylight Savings Time will only be a 10 minute jump!
See y’all tomorrow!
I only come here to read your comments..IN THE EVENING!! What time do you post?
Monday through Friday by 7am