Well, I’m thinking that no April Fool’s Day would be complete without first agreeing with the Psalmist:
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.”
And then, including an admonishment from the Proverbs:
He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.” –13.20
April Fool’s Day has long been a day of silly tricks and pranks at our house — the one day a year that shenanigans can be played and everyone’s on the lookout for what they might find next.
Early on we had to make some “house-rules” for this day so that no one would get hurt, waste food, break anything or cause anything to break. You know, those unintended consequences of “fun.” It’s almost always those unintended consequences that get us, don’t they?! Those things that come back to nip our heels or pay us back when we least expect.
So, we made rules early on — and with three sets of boys, plus one, we’ve had quite a host of hilarious AprilFool’s Day pranks. As I shared on my Facebook page, the first son still holds the records for ingenuity! He seemed to pull out all the stops when it came to creatively playing jokes — but, amazingly, they were always within the established boundaries — and very funny.
The boundaries were set early on when someone put salt in the sugar and sugar in the salt. One trade wasn’t so bad — the other was. Another time, when one put green food colouring in the milk, no one would drink it — so, that’s when we decided: pranks could not wreck/waste food.
Another time, one took all the hinges off the doors… no one ever got hurt, but with so many littles at the time, we thought perhaps someone could get hurt, so: no dangerous tricks. They were careful, from then on, to do creative and clever tricks.
So, I’ll tell you about one such AprilFool’s Day… quite some time ago. I should have known there was going to be a whole lot of surprising when I walked down the hall to see that everything from the living room (except the piano) was stacked in the kitchen — a room that was not all that large! How he moved everything in there, I still marvel. And, I mean: everything. I honestly laughed so hard… seeing just the kitchen table and chairs in the middle of the living room.
Okay, one more. Another AprilFool’s Day… again, I knew I was in for a real fun time when I opened my bedroom door and the other two bedroom doors shut! And, as I walked down the hall I noticed the living room lamp was off, so I switched on the light – still no lamp-light. I looked around the table to see that the cord was unplugged – so I plugged in the lamp using the cord that looked to me as if it had simply fallen out of the socket. Well, that cord was attached to a “boombox” that was situated under the table. Omy – what a shock when that music was blaring!! I couldn’t unplug that cord fast enough!! :o) Then, I went into the kitchen to fix breakfast — where discovered that the faucet didn’t work, so I opened the doors to reach under and turn on the water… only to see the wall phone had been placed under the sink with a note taped to it: “Time to call the plumber! the note read. Well, when I did finally get the water turned on, it was a shocking experience — for the sprayer had been taped down and sprayed water straight out into the kitchen. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t instantly turn off the water. We all laughed and laughed. I think that little sprayer trick was played many times that day.
And that same sprayer trick was played here in the kitchen today by children who weren’t even alive in the time of the above stories.
It’s funny how life goes… it sort of repeats and repeats itself. Or so it seems, sometimes.
They’re not the only ones to play a few tricks. Stretch-tite plastic wrap stretched evenly over the toilet bowl is virtually undetected. At first. The first time I ever did that was a very long time ago when I was working as a cook for a Christian school & daycare… and the men’s bathroom was where the toiletbowl wrapping happened. When the pastor of that large church came into the lunchroom… I was told he was laughing as he shared with some of the other employees about the AprilFool’s prank. I remained very busy cooking. I don’t know if I will ever meet him again, but if I do, I’ll apologize. ;o)
