April Fool's Day, Brad!

I am NOT a good practical jokester. I'm not even good at TELLING jokes. I made one up once and Brad will never let me forget it.

ME:  "What did a doughnut say to his friend who had fallen over?"

BRAD:  "What?"

ME:  "Do not get up."

I also tend to laugh all the way through the telling of my jokes which makes it even worse. I came home with a doozy the other day and Brad made me call up Savannah to tell her. She ended up hanging up on me and then calling me back using Facetime so she could watch me tell it.

"There were these two hobo peanuts..." (hysterically laughing at the very thought of a hobo peanut) "...and they were looking to ride the rails...." (snicker snicker) "...for safety's sake, they were looking for an empty train car..." (snicker snicker snort snort) "...but unfortunately, the train car they chose was occupied and one of the peanuts was assaulted." By the conclusion of my joke (which took approximately ten minutes in the telling), Savannah could no longer see me on her little phone screen because I had collapsed onto the floor in a fit of merriment. As usual though, no one else was laughing.

So with my history of failed joke attempts, one would think that I would steer clear of April Fool's Day...especially bearing in mind that I am a "can dish it out but not take it" kind of gal. But, oh no. I spend WEEKS of concentrated research planning my April Fool's Day prank on my husband. My criteria is that the joke should be cute and slightly irritating. It should not be appearance-altering or annoying enough to provoke retaliation.

Last year, I painstakingly painted his shower soap with clear nail-polish. I know...pure genius. But how was I going to up the ante this year? I considered sewing the flies on his underpants shut but I forgot another important criteria point:  The prank should be virtually effortless because I am inherently lazy so sewing was definitely out. I thought he might notice hot glue application so I abandoned the underpants idea altogether. Emptying the filling of a jelly doughnut and re-filling it with mayonnaise also seemed labor-intensive (and just WRONG...like a crime against nature) so I nixed that plan as well.

Finally, after hours of research, I found the perfect April Fool's Day prank for Brad:  Replacing his Kool-Aid with Jell-O!!! I mixed up my magical concoction while he showered that morning, knowing he'd be at work all day to "set" my plan into wiggly-jiggly motion. As supper-time approached, Sydney and I were all a-twitter, waiting for him to discover my trick. But instead of Kool-Aid, he reached for the grape juice. Oh no! Sydney and I stared at each other in alarm. An April Fool's joke on April 2nd isn't funny...it's just plain sad. A lot of dramatic gesticulating and enunciated mouth wording set Plan 2 into play. "Dad," Sydney asked plaintively from the living room, "could you get me a drink?" "Sure, what do you want," Brad unsuspectingly said. "Kool-Aid," she called.

We listened, with hands clamped over our quivering lips, to Brad's footsteps to the cupboard to retrieve a cup, over to the fridge and then...an exasperated sigh. "I really thought you'd matured this year," he said, "How long did you research to find this?" Thank goodness he actually couldn't see me at this point because I had collapsed on the floor in a fit of merriment. April Fool's Day!