An April Fools' Ace

In my maturing years, I've found that, more and more, my life is finding its shape in a form that would thoroughly amaze and disappoint my elementary-school self. As an over-achieving fourth-grader, I was absolutely positive that I was going to go to Brown, become a lawyer, get hitched and produce four well-trained, handsome and athletic boys well before my ripened age of 26.

If only that little blonde-haired future scholar and matriarch could see me now – partially employed, living in sin, childless and financially rickety. Thank god she was happily naïve to my high-school self’s successful petition to be moved down from advanced to upper-standard classes because the kids in upper standard were more “fun” and my college self’s less than academic extracirriculars. But, standing on a shore very opposite from my youthful ambitions, I am not disappointed in any of my choices or unhappy about the things I have come to love… especially my foray into mastering the craft of the highly successful April Fools’ joke, a task I was not well equipped to handle in my younger years.

My pranks aren’t elaborate, they’re not YouTube material, and, honestly, if I retold them right now, you most likely would not laugh. But for me, it’s not about swapping fluff for toothpaste or putting cellophane around the toilet seat. It’s about the sly fool, the simple trick. A twisted story, an outrageous declaration, a silly little lie. My jokes are subtle and they’re effective. Not the ha-ha variety, but more like the got-ya sort.

I’ve got a good track record going - my 2008 April Fools’ just claimed its most recent victim. Almost exactly three years after I said I had been arrested on the way to work with a crowd of jaywalking pedestrians, my dear friend Laura was finally clued into the joke.

So, queue the devious finger tapping and slight eyebrow raise, I must now begin to concoct a new fib for Friday…