April Fools' Day is Stupid And So Are You if You Believe in it

Today is April 1, a/k/a “April Fools Day,” and I don’t like it. All this thing is about is making people feel bad. I have never read about or even Googled “April Fools’ Day” to find out where this April Fools crap came from and why it is here, because I don’t care. I don’t like it, April Fools’ Day, and I don’t want to know anything about it. I just want it to Not Be.

Besides, whatever: it’s probably just some dumb Ancient and/or Religious thing, I bet, that got all repeated and repeated over Time and became stupider and stupider and eventually congealed into this annoying “April Fool” garbage we have now. And this is not a thing where I complain about April Fools to set you up for some stupid April Fool thing at the end. I hate that.

I don’t like being fooled, except by Magicians, in a Controlled Environment. I pay some Professional Magicians a sum of money, and they go about their business of fooling me in ways that will not infuriate, and that’s fine, that’s entertainment, but on April Fools’ Day, something could come from anywhere at any moment, to “Fool” me, and make me mad, and that’s all, not to entertain, inform, or delight me, see? I don’t like it. I especially do not like any April Fools in my office where I work, and this year April 1 is a Monday, and I know it’s a cliché or whatever, but already I don’t generally or particularly enjoy Monday as a day of the week when work is involved, because usually Monday occurs after my restful “Week End,” and simply by its very nature as the first Business Day of the Week, Monday means I am at work again, and now I have a big fucking pile of Business to deal with and I ain’t got no time for no April Fools, see? I eat lunch at my desk.

Look at this thing I found on the Web site of Parade, which is related to the magazine that comes in your average Sunday paper. The print version of Parade has stuff like “Walter Scott’s Personality Parade,” where they ask “The Rock” if he ever played with G.I. Joes (yes).

And there are questions for the “Ask Marilyn” feature by Marilyn vos Savant, who was listed a few times in The Guinness Book of World Records for “Highest I.Q.” Ms. vos Savant fields questions such as:

Ask Marilyn: Do Fans Help Cool Dogs?
E. Morgan of San Antonio, Texas, writes:

Marilyn: Fans help cool people by promoting evaporation of perspiration, but dogs don’t perspire. So do fans help cool dogs?

Marilyn responds:

Because dogs have sweat glands only on their noses and the pads of their paws, fans provide little cooling, if any. But if you wet the dog first, a fan is beneficial. Just remember that as soon as he dries off, you’ve got to wet him again!

I just wanted you to get a feel for the Parade if you never read one. Here’s the thing I saw from that ticked me off in terms of the whole April Fools thing. It is called “15 Easy April Fools’ Day Pranks to Try at Home and Work,” and it is full of stuff that if it happend to me, I would not be held responsible for my actions in a Court of Law, because I would easily be identified as a victim of Temporary Mental Defect.

15 Easy April Fools’ Day Pranks to Try At Home and Work

Tomorrow is April Fools’ Day. Are you prepared? Add these simple yet hysterical gags to your arsenal before you become a trickster’s target.

1. This one’s for diabolical parents: When the kids are sound asleep, switch them to each other’s beds. Just make sure you’re there to see their reactions when they wake up!
2. Change your victim’s cell phone settings from English to another language.
3. Replace the cream filling of Oreos with toothpaste, then invite your target for a snack.
4. Add a few drops of food coloring to the bottom of a cereal bowl. When your target pours in milk, he’ll get a colorful surprise.
5. Sprinkle grape Kool-Aid mix inside the showerhead to turn the water — and your victim’s skin — purple.
6. Place mini marshmallows on top of the ceiling fan’s blades, then ask someone to turn it on.
7. Fill soap dispensers around the house with pancake syrup.
8. Spread a layer of cream cheese over your target’s deodorant.
9. Switch your friend’s cell phone background image to a photo of cracked glass.
10. Fill an empty mayonnaise jar (with the label still on) with vanilla yogurt while no one’s looking. Then, when the family is in the room, grab the jar from the refrigerator and dig in to the “mayo.”
11. On Facebook, change your birthday to April 1. When the well wishes start rolling in, switch your status to “April Fools!”
12. Dip the ends of your officemate’s pens in clear nail polish.
13. Take a screenshot of your coworker’s computer desktop, and set it as the background. Hide all of the desktop icons and watch as she struggles with the “frozen” screen.
14. Post a sign on the office copy machine that says, “This copier is now voice-activated.”
15. Change your outgoing voicemail message to “Hello? … Hello? … April Fools!”

Now right away I have a problem with the grape Kool-Aid one even being real, but for the most part this is just a buncha dumb things. However, the Oreo thing? If you do that to somebody, you are a jerk, tricking them into eating toothpaste. If you put cream cheese “over your target’s deodorant” you are an asshole, ruining somebody’s deodorant and making them late for work because now they have to clean cheese off their armpit. The Facebook one, I have no sympathy for anybody on Facebook who does anything, but really, this is how you spend your time while I’m dealing with a pile of work? It’s Monday, man, I don’t have time for this shit. Filling the soap dispensers in your home, which, if it has soap dispensers, I’m seeing a sprawling suburban deal, maybe a Split or Raised Rancher, or a Center-Hall Colonial, and you’re an idiot. Go clean out your soap dispensers, ass, nobody fell for it because they could smell the stupid Mrs. Butterworth’s, which is just liquid corn syrup, nice going, setting up your family for the Diabetes. “I fed you nothing but liquid sugar for years and years: April Fool!”

Now, the mayonnaise one, that could be funny, because it’s the only one where the April Fooler is being the joke. I almost approve of that, but do it some other day, don’t be on the bandwagon with all these jackasses. The marshmallows on the ceiling fan? It’s April, man, not a lot of parts of the country are doing the ceiling fan too much in either direction, but mostly, do you think it’s funny to have filthy-from-dust marshmallows falling onto whatever? How often do you think the top of the fucking ceiling fan in my office gets cleaned? Is it funny that there’s dirty marshmallows in my coffee? What the hell is your problem? Do you want to eat these goddamn marshmallows off the floor? Seriously, let’s get down on the floor and check out these grubby marshmallows we need to pick up, you first, yes, get real close. No jury would convict me, right? I swear, man, you have all been warned.

Mr. Wrong can converse with you via many medias. Photo by “xploitme.”