A good April Fools' Day gag says 'I love you'

[Blackfoot]

By Gordon Keith


I am so nervous and excited. I have only one day to set up the toilet bowl of giraffe's blood, hire the dwarves and rig the hidden camera.

April Fools' Day is my favorite holiday. In my youth, on Dec. 24, when most kids were counting down the hours for a special visit from a jolly old elf, I was counting down the 97 days until I could slash my parents' tires with impunity. Their anger confirmed their love.

Most of my family fights have centered on my drinking, but pranks come in a close second – the laughing, the good-natured hijinks, the loss of property. It is all so magical. Some say that I don't really grasp the difference between "prank" and "assault," but I say why argue some antics?

Humans love fun, and what could be funnier and express "I love you" more than an antique china cabinet spray-painted safety orange before a dinner party? Well, my mom found out. The following year, I threw her ancestral photo albums in a gorilla cage!

Let me ask you, do you love your girlfriend? I haven't met a girlfriend yet who doesn't enjoy a residue-filled crack pipe planted in her workplace before a whispered call to her direct supervisor. It is just flat-out bonding, is what it is.

Now I admit that not all pranks were taken in the spirit in which they were contrived. I once hid poison in my dad's quesadillas just to see if he would find it. He didn't. The lead investigator did.

I use April Fools' Day to my advantage. How? I time my affairs to consummate on April 1. Last year, my wife, tipped off by clergy, busted in our bedroom as I was fruitlessly sweating over a menopausal blonde.

"I knew it!" she screamed.

"April Fools!" I retorted.

I chased her out to her car, where she sat behind locked doors on her cellphone making plans to move back to Iowa with her mother. But I think she could see the humor.

In summation, ALL pranks have their basis in love – deep, abiding love. And on this April Fools' Day, I would gladly show my family how much I love them, if we were still speaking.