When my son was about 5 or 6 years old, April Fool's Day was coming up and he asked me what it was. I thought for a minute, then calmly and seriously explained to him that it was the one day a year when parents could return their children if they'd been bad. At first, he got this worried look on his face, then he got a contemplative look, then he broke into a huge grin and said, "I guess Mother's Day is the one day a year when kids can return their mothers!" That kid was always too smart for his own good. I thought I'd get at least 10 or 12 years of good pranks in before he caught on.
I got what I hope was an April's Fool's Day prank call. A recorded message saying that the IRS was going to sue. I wasn't even thinking about today being April 1st . Not funny .
I read on the internet ( so I know it's true) Ben Franklin proposed daylight savings time as an April Fools joke, claiming people would save money on candles and lamp oil by having an extra hour of daylight. We are still being duped by that joke.
April Fools Day is also my birthday, which for some reason means that few people forget it. I enjoy reading and hearing about spoof news stories, otherwise I just look on it as the start of another year, which originally it was before the calendar was changed. People who continued to follow the old calendar starting in April were considered to be fools.
Many years ago, we had an American Indian friend who stayed ith us for a while. On April Fools' Day, I made bologna sandwiches for Rodney and the kids, and I used one slice of the lunchmeat as a stencil to draw the right size of circles from a brown paper grocery bag. (we still used those back then) After cutting all of the little circles of paper bag, I made the sandwiches, each with the little circle of paper carefully hidden by the bologna and cheese on the sandwich, and covered in mayonnaise. My kids remembered that it was April Fool's Day, and wisely refrained from biting into their sandwich as they all watched Rodney take a big bite out of his. When he took the sandwich away from his mouth, it pulled out the paper, and there he sat , totally shocked and bewildered, with a bite of sandwich in his mouth, and a circle of brown paper sack covered in mayonnaise hanging out of his mouth. It was one of the funniest things that i have ever seen, and Rodney was even more perplexed as we all sat there and roared with laughter. He finally took the paper out of his mouth, looked at it and then at me, and asked why in the world had i done such a terrible thing to his sandwich ? ? Then , the kids had to take their sandwiches apart and show Rodney that they all had paper bag circles in their sandwiches, too; but just had known better than to eat them until they knew it was "safe". Rodney had never heard about Appril Fool's jokes before, and he was still slightly baffled by the whole thing; but he then thought it was funny, too.