By Bectoria Crandall
I’m a big fan of April Fool’s Day. Huge! I guess this can be traced back to my teen years when the pranking and tomfoolery really took off. My family would prank me by doing things like creating a spider’s web of clear tape in a doorway. Not too easy to see against the white background of our doors. Other pranks included first greasing the toilet seat and then wrapping the seat with clear cling wrap. The unsuspecting victims of this prank (usually me) would think they’d outsmarted their pranksters by hopefully noticing and then removing the clear cling wrap only to find themselves in a slippery sitch after finding the shortening.
I’m happy to report that my April Fool’s Day pranking has only improved over time. One year, while working as a Social Worker in Children’s Services, my entire unit (department) got into the spirit of things. We took the entire lot of papers from the recycling bin and stacked it in our boss’s office for him to review, page by page (don’t worry. We let him in on the joke before he actually wasted time doing so!). We did other funny things but my favorite still has to be the voicemails we left him. One coworker called as an enraged service provider, demanding a call back. The only problem was each of the four times he called, he only left a six-digit telephone number (“Please. You must call me back at 24-683-….1”). Never one to disappoint, I too got into the spirit and left some silly voicemails of my own. This was one of the only times my strangely childlike voice has worked in my favor. In one of my voicemails, I claimed to be a foster child assigned to one of his social workers. I told him that I had grown tired of my foster family and was taking the midnight train to Georgia (yeah. I love the song!). Similarly, in another voicemail, I posed as a different foster child who had been arrested trying to board the slow boat to China. I’m hoping this story translates to all readers, but trust me, if you were a social worker in this field, you’d find these pranks hilarious, as our boss did-once we finally told him! Never have I seen such a clear expression of relief flush across someone’s face!
If you’re looking to prank-it-up this April Fool’s Day, I have some ideas for you.
Pranks that can be done around the home…
- Adding food coloring to household liquid soap
- Short-sheeting someone’s bed
- Sprinkling powdered sugar someone’s sheets (victims don’t realize it until the sugar has melted and stuck to their legs!)
- Adding hair dye to shampoo (a friend of my husband’s family did this to her father shortly after he had surgery-apparently it was hilarious!)
- Place a rubber band around the sprayer handle at the kitchen sink
- Tie a string to the ring of someone’s keys and then safety pin that string inside the pocket of that person’s coat
- Place fake insects in someone’s shoes
- Add a few pieces of crispy rice cereal to someone’s sandwich (it mimics the crunch of a bug!)
The above suggestions are probably meant for an older audience. Rest assured, I am always happy to find ways to prank my little ones in silly little ways just for them.
Pranks just for kids…
- Wear all of your clothes backward (it may take a while but when they figure it out, they think it’s very funny!)
- Serve ice cream or pancakes for dinner
- Decorate for Christmas
- Toilet paper their bedroom
- Replace their bath toys with sandcastle toys
- Move around the house by only walking backward or skipping and insist you don’t know what they’re talking about when they ask about it
- Drink out of a baby bottle all day
- Empty the contents of your purse and make snow angels in it. They will think you’ve lost your mind. It’s great!
The fun in pranking kids is watching them enjoy your utter silliness. Kids love it when we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Come to think of it, who doesn’t love a little silliness? It adds some fun flavor to our lives!
Don’t let another April Fool’s Day pass you by. Get pranking! It’s for the greater good.
NOTE: If you have some fun pranking stories, we’d love to hear them!
4SmartyPants 