April Fools Day…

It could just as well be called March Fools Day or January Fools Day or May Fools Day.

There’s no clear record of exactly how & when the joking around began though there are several excellent theories. It seems likely the holiday simply evolved in response to human’s sometimes bizarre sense of humor. Apparently we’ve been trying to fool each other since the beginning. Rumor even has it that Eve told Adam the apple was made of ice cream!

There are three components to every good April Fools joke…

• you have to be sneaky…very sneaky!
• you have to take your victim by surprise
• the goal is to laugh – not to hurt

If you need help getting started, here are 3 of the most famous April Fools Days jokes:

On April 1, 1957, the BBC managed to convince their audience that spaghetti could be grown on trees. They filmed a tree full of spaghetti in Sweden & explained that the spaghetti could be grown because the ‘spaghetti weevil’ had been successfully eradicated…Yup people actually bought that hoax. Here’s a photo from the Museum of Hoaxes.

In 1976, the BBC did it again when they had astronomer Patrick Moore announce that Jupiter, Pluto & Earth would be in alignment. He explained that during this rare occurrence, Earth’s gravity would be effected & people would actually weigh less…Yup bought that one too!

Listeners were told that if they jumped at exactly 9:47 a.m. they could briefly float. People not only claimed to have jumped, they also reported floating around the room & hitting their head on the ceiling.

Burger King got into the April Fools act in 1998 when they published a full page ad in the USA Today advertising the ‘Left-Handed Whopper’. They claimed that all the extras had been redistributed so that left handed people could more easily eat their hamburgers…you guessed it, people tried to buy it!

Now, if you’re are a ready to do some fooling of your own, here are 3 great ways to get started:

1. Tell someone you bought them an iPad. If I have to explain this one to you, call me, we seriously need to talk!

2. Tell your favorite person you’ll fix them a nice bowl of cereal for breakfast.

Do it the night before & freeze it!

3.  Buy some Oreos, take them apart, & scrape off the frosting.

Replace the frosting with some lovely minty toothpaste! Serve with milk.

This last one just cracks me up!

Now go forth & fool some more.

Me…I’m off to eat some cereal!!!