According to Mark Twain, “April 1 is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three-hundred-sixty-four days of the year.” I’m not foolish enough to think I can’t be fooled by anyone anytime.
My youngest took April Fools’ Day to heart every single time it rolled around. He was my mischievous one. Knowing how terrified I am of snakes, he decided to trick me one April Fools’ Day by wrapping a fake snake around the gallon milk container in the refrigerator making sure its head was sticking toward the door. He thought that when I opened it the results would be hysterical.
It would have probably been very effective except for one thing. Our Siamese cat was in the kitchen when I opened the refrigerator door. No one else was home at the time to witness what happened next. When I saw the snake I thought my heart would not only stop or at least skip a beat, but that it would absolutely jump right out of my body. The poor cat was minding her own business, sitting in the doorway beside the cabinets.
I took a deep breath, grabbed that fake snake and threw it across the room. As luck would have it the thing wrapped itself around the cat’s neck. The sound I heard next was 10 times more terrifying than finding the fake snake in the refrigerator. The cat literally screamed and jumped two feet in the air and didn’t land on her feet until she was upstairs. I was amazed at how fast it all happened. My son was even more amazed when he found the fake snake in his bed that night. The results were more than hysterical.
Perhaps my most memorable April Fools’ joke was one I played on my mom and dad when I was about the same age as my son. They had the habit of having coffee with cream and sugar first thing every morning. On this fateful April 1, I slipped into the kitchen early and filled the sugar bowl with salt and waited for the hysterical results.
My dad took a drink and didn’t even make a face. Bummer! Then, as she always did, my mom put two spoonfuls of what she thought was sugar and one teaspoon of cream in her coffee, stirred it well and poured some into her saucer. This is what a lot of folks in the south do with their coffee; they “saucer” it. She then proceeded to take a sip. The result was a mixture of gagging, spitting and spewing coffee everywhere.
After I stood up, waved my arms and exclaimed, “April Fool” she gave me a quick lesson in economics. The cost of coffee was 19 cents a pound and sugar was 25 cents a pound and I was the fool for wasting such commodities just to play a joke on her. I still laugh when I think about the gagging, spitting and spewing!
Have yourself a happy and sane April Fools’ Day tomorrow. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
I just hope you won’t find a snake in your refrigerator or bed and that the person at Starbucks won’t put salt in your coffee. The results may be hysterical, but someone might think it’s all a matter of foolish economics.
Email Betty Heath at begeheath690@aol.com.