April Fool's Day (2013)

After being on Spring Break for a week and my blog becoming a journal of "things I did today", I was wondering what I would talk about once the school year kicked back into action. And then a nationally known and universally recognized (aka not religious) pseudo-holiday comes along. So, happy April Fool's Day! I know that since this entry is being posted on the morning of the 2nd, my well wishes come a little late, but it's the thought that counts, right?

I can't say that I'm gung ho about April Fool's Day. Even growing up, I wasn't really the subject of pranks and the only ones I really saw were in between teachers at school. They got me to chuckle, but it didn't really set a fire within me to play pranks on my friends or sister. Maybe it's just me, but April Fool's Day is one of those pseudo-holidays that suddenly happens without the pre-holiday hype that comes about with the heavy hitters of Christmas, Thanksgiving, and (in the US) the 4th of July. Lowering the hype still includes holidays like Mother's Day, Father's Day, and President's Day... unless you're a used car dealer, because they love President's Day. I don't know, even though April Fool's Day is on every calendar I see and it's clearly without a doubt April 1st every year, it kind of reminds of "Talk Like a Pirate Day" or Star Wars Day.

I'm off today and that wasn't on accident. When my co-workers and I scheduled March and the first week of April, I noticed that today was the first day back after Spring Break. This meant that everyone just got back yesterday, bursting with energy both from resting during Spring Break, and being glad to be back with the building of their compatriots. I figured that if anything would happen, it would be today, but oddly, I didn't really hear of anything. I spent a good chunk of my day in my apartment and outside of one instance of hearing someone clomping the hallway, things seemed pretty normal.

Don't get me wrong, I love making plays on words and fabricating stories in front of friends in order to pull the rug from underneath them. That just doesn't seem like a prank. Pranks seem like they need props. I've heard of pranks like plastic wrap on toilets, money glued to the ground, and those little buzzers that you would hide in your palm and nab someone when you shook their hand. Of course, now that my peer group and I are in our mid-late 20's (whoa... first time saying that), the pranks have been ramped up to hallways filled with paper cups, tin foiling peoples' rooms, and hiding in a cabinet so you can jump out and scare someone. Now that I write those down, I realize that I did have small parts to play in some college pranks, but none of them were actually on April 1st (if memory serves me correctly). I think April Fool's isn't really in my radar as of late is that pranks can easily get out of hand leading to someone/something getting hurt and the spontaneity just isn't there. I think that's why I like what big companies will do on days like today. Google has had announcement video the past couple of years for services like Gmail Motion (writing emails by dancing in front of a webcam), Gmail Tap (reducing that complicated smartphone keyboard into a Morse code dot and dash), and this year's Google Nose (offering your nose the level of information your eyes and ears have been given online). As long as it doesn't bend people way too out of shape, it's cute, it gets a laugh, and then we carry on with life. No harm, no foul.

Since it is April Fool's, I feel like sharing an April Fool's story and unless I have some serious repressed memories, this is one of the few times that I pranked someone specifically on April 1st. It was my first year at the Missouri Academy and I was watching Amazing Race on my computer after I kicked the students out of my apartment (so we're talking 1am or so on the first). I lived on a different floor at that point, and there was a slight alcove right outside my door since it was at the end of the hallway. So, I'm watching a video and I hear some rustling outside my door. I peek through the eyehole and see some loft equipment and a big beanbag chair blockading my door. Based on the whispers and general antics of the wing the previous night, I knew who it was and I knew they wanted some clean fun.

During the week, I can choose to keep my door closed all day (aka before 4pm), so I waited until I couldn't hear anyone down the hall and I grabbed all the loft pieces and put them in my room. I contacted a co-worker and we quickly moved the items to her area, so my guys didn't randomly see them. I then found one of the students that I heard the night before (let's call him Ben - not his actual name) and told him that Custodial contacted me saying that a storage room was broken into and some loft pieces were missing. This of course was a fabrication and Ben definitely believed me. He apologized and went downstairs to talk to the custodial staff. Since the custodians were gone for the day, Ben wrote a lengthy message on their whiteboard and when he signed his name, I turned to him and said "April Fool's". He laughed and scoffed and everything was good. I didn't plan this part ahead of time but after revealing my prank, I told Ben "Yeah, Custodial didn't talk to me and there was no break-in. However, I'm not sure where the loft pieces went. They just disappeared sometime today." Again, another fabrication since I knew exactly where they were. Ben said he would be on the lookout, and when he was off-floor, I snuck the items on the wing and made a little fence around Ben's desk. About 10 minutes later, I hear "Matt! You got me again!" coming from the hallway as I sat in my apartment. Ben came by and we laughed about it. See, everyone knew it was in good fun and nothing got harmed. It was a nice prank.

Well, I feel like I've been rambling enough now. If I seemed cynical before, I was watching some videos from MovieBob (from TheEscapistMagazine) and I kind of emulated his snarkiness. Hope your April Fool's Day was fun! Good night!