April Fool’s Days Past
3 April 2005
Though I am late, I was thinking today about an April Fool’s Day prank that I pulled once and so I am going to backdate this post to Friday, April 1st… (April Fool! Actually, I’m not going to.)
Anyway… when I was a kid, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house. My grandpa didn’t pass away until I was nearly 12, but even when I was 9 and 10 he wasn’t in the best of health. Though he tried to get out and putter around, by then he had had three heart surgeries and suffered from diabetes. Therefore he spent a lot of time at home resting in his old La-Z-Boy.
The year that I was 9 (almost 10) I went to grandma and grandpa’s after school on April Fool’s Day. As I told them about the good April Fool’s jokes that had been played in the fourth grade that day, we remembered the year before when Grandpa pulled a very mean trick on my great-aunt.
She had a new car (a Buick if I remember correctly) and had parked it outside my grandparents’ house. She was visiting my grandma with her back to the window, when suddenly my grandpa cried out to her that her brand new car was on fire! Without thinking, she immediately panicked and ran outside to her car. When she came back inside a couple of minutes later, you would have sworn she was the one on fire! She was bright red and very angry at my grandpa and all he said was, “April Fool!”
As we were laughing about that day, I told my grandpa he had a hole in his sock. Since he had a hard time moving, it was nearly impossible for him to see the bottom of his sock and while he tried to look, I kept a very straight face and kept repeating that he had a hole in his sock. My grandma went along with the joke and said that yes, it was true; he had a hole in his sock.
We kept the joke up for several minutes (it wasn’t easy for the 9 year old me to keep a straight face, but I did) until it was spoiled by my then three and a half year old sister who asked where the hole was. She didn’t see one. Finally, I burst out giggling and said “April Fool!” Grandpa knew he had been had and as he told me what a great prankster I was, we all had a good belly-laugh.
OK, I know now that it wasn’t a particularly impressive April Fool’s joke… But dammit! I was NINE!!!
