One could argue that April Fools’ Day deserves its own greeting card, but in true spirit of the holiday, a bat mitzvah card would work just as well. April Fools’ Day is a holiday for laughs, pranks, merrymaking, jocularity and jocularity, because it’s fun to write. It’s a day when we let our hair and someone else’s pants down, a day when the words, “Let’s watch a Ben Affleck movie,” are acceptable. Your Mountain Times staff enjoys April Fools’ Day, so here are a few of our favorites to try out next Wednesday.

Frank Ruggiero: The One About the Office

 

With his newspaper-covered office, I like to think Jason felt a bit like Charles Foster Kane.

A few years ago, when sportswriter Bill Cain graced our office with his trademark wit and 2-liter Coke bottles, I was happy to have found a friend and colleague with a similar glee for mischief. As April Fools’ Day crept up, we trained our sights on the office of group editor Jason Reagan. Aware of impending shenanigans, Jason locked his office every evening, an act in justified paranoia and ultimate futility.

The evening of March 31, we collected as much newspaper as possible, which is almost too possible when you work for a newspaper, and proceeded to wallpaper his entire office with the Watauga Democrat. Framed pictures were removed from the walls and replaced with 8-by-10 press release photos of professionally trained wolves, a nice touch that diverted the attention of his 9 a.m. interview subjects the very next morning.

Jason had attempted to remove the wallpaper that morning, but to little avail, and he petitioned us to do away with the décor throughout the following week. We finally relented that Friday and tore down our handiwork, which coincidentally was our professional work, offering a mildly existential experience.

Other tried and true office pranks involve lightly gluing a telephone earpiece to its set and placing a small sticky note on the bottom of someone’s optical computer mouse, effectively blocking the laser and rendering the mouse useless. A heftier feat involves setting someone’s desk drawers upside down in the desk by removing the drawers, turning the desk upside down, replacing them, and placing the desk right side up. Those without the manpower could try randomly switching drawers around to simply confuse their coworker. Or you could try the “I quit” ploy, telling your boss just that, leaving for the day and return at 4:55 p.m. to share an “April Fool!” and, hopefully, a hearty laugh.

Savannah Holbrook: Sorry about that whole death scare thing

I pride myself every year on pulling the best April Fools’ pranks on my friends and family. Yet, one year I put myself in a worse position than I had put my victim of the joke in.

Spring break of my freshman year of high school, my family went to the beach as we had always done. Being it was April 1, I had to come up with the best prank that I could to top my past year’s. So, I sat an pondered all the way to the beach what to do for April Fool’s day. It dawned on me when we reached the hotel room...

I told my sister to call my boyfriend at the time, who was back home, and tell him we had been in a horrible car accident while driving down south. Too, I thought it would be funny to add that I that I was in intensive care and may not make it. (I had to add a little something spicy to the story!) I also informed her to be sure and say “April Fools’ Day!” before she got off the phone with him.

My sister makes the call. The phone rings and rings. Finally, the answering machine picks up instead of my boyfriend. My sister goes with the moment and leaves this long, drawn out message about how I am in intensive care and could die. Then, as she goes to hang up the phone she forgets to say April Fool’s Day! I made her call right back and leave another message about how everything was a joke. We got a good laugh out of it and went on about the evening.

Later on that night, my boyfriend calls. He starts yelling at me as soon as I get on the phone which was unlike him. He informs me that when he heard the first message my sister had left, he was so upset that he had cut the answering machine off to sit down and cry! He had not heard the second message about how it was a prank until his mom had played all the messages through an hour later! Let me tell you, I felt like a complete fool that night.

Looking back now, I wonder what I was thinking to believe that story would be funny in any way. But, hey, I was young and dumb. You live and learn. Happy April Fools’ Day!

Scott Nicholson: Expecting the Unexpected

I haven’t played many pranks since using the old “shoe trick,” where you perch a shoe over a partially open door, balancing it on the door trim. When the victim walks in, boom, laughs abound, and sometimes a knot on the noggin.

It’s hard to fool anybody on April Fools’ Day because everybody expects it all day, so it’s best to beat the rush and do it on March 31. Try these prank phone calls on for size:

“Hello, this is Agent Owen Bunches with the IRS. We’ve noticed a discrepancy in some of your documents...”

“I’m glad you have selected us to serve your insurance needs, and let me assure you that we here at AIG take this responsibility seriously.”

“Do you have Prince Albert in a can? Then you really should quit smoking whatever it is you’re smoking.”

“Hi, this is Doug. You know, Doug. Your pal. No, I’m not trying to sell you a digital satellite television package. Honestly. It’s really me, it’s – (click)”

“I couldn’t help but notice your online dating profile contained your home telephone number, so I took it as an invitation to call you up and say I love you and you better be my soul mate or else.”

“I’m the person who witnessed that terrible thing you did six years ago. I’m sure you remember, but I’ll be happy to have my attorney send you a memo of the details unless a cash deposit in a paper bag is made to the trash can at the south end of the park by noon tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry, but your unemployment benefits are set to expire and you’ll have to actually pretend to look for a job.”

Ha ha, with laughs like this, April is sure to be a fun-filled escapade to the heights of humor, or maybe we’ll just use the shoe trick and replace it with an anvil instead. That ought to be good enough for “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” unless you’ve got a kid kicking his dad in the crotch or something highbrow like that.