ON PRANKS

April Fool's Day is not my favorite day of the year. I don't like being pranked, I don't like having practical jokes played on me. Therefore, I also do not really enjoy pranking other people, as I am a "Golden Rule" kind of person. I realize that pranking someone else would likely create enough joy to balance out the negative feelings I would get from being the prankee, but it's usually not worth it to me.

I have fallen for the occasional larger-scale prank before. Years ago, a wrestling website I frequented posted four or five fake-but-plausible stories. I believed the first two, then questioned the next couple, then realized what date it was. The next year, I remembered going into the day that they had posted fake stories and was prepared to enjoy them for what they were: jokes. These are pranks on a large scale.

Today I have only seen one real large-scale prank. Gmail claims that they will have an automated response program to write "reply" emails for their users. It took a few seconds, once I understood the concept I knew it couldn't be real. I chuckled and continued to my email.

A short while later, a friend came into my office and asked him to assist with HIS April Fool's Day prank. I told him no, then asked what it would be. He said he was going to tell some soon-to-be-married friends that his wedding gift to them was going to be a chainsaw sculpture of a bear.

That is a terrible prank. Even if I liked pranks, I wouldn't help out with that. What a terrible idea.

Another group of friends takes particular pleasure in pranking a friend. Last Christmas, a wise friend got the idea to let slip the possibility that we were getting him a $200 gift certificate...for a dollar store. We all gleefully latched onto the idea, and I had the bright idea of making a fake gift certificate in Microsoft Publisher. After he opened it, we let him stew about it for a moment, then gave him his real presents. And truthfully, I don't think it's that mean of a prank. Now, if we hadn't told him about it, and then circulated a notice to local dollar stores to be on the lookout for fake gift certificates, and he ended up getting arrested for fraud...no. I wouldn't have gone along with that at all. Probably.