BLACKFORD: Westside column for April 5

Monday was April Fools’ Day. Some of you probably went out of your way to pull a fast one on a family member or coworker. If so, I really hope you didn’t go overboard. As far as I know, things were pretty uneventful around here. Which is fine, because it is not my favorite day of the year.

There have been some pretty good April Fools’ hoaxes over time. In 1957, the BBC tried to convince people that Swiss farmers had Spaghetti trees. In 1992, a fake presidential campaign for Richard Nixon was announced. Burger King announced the left-handed Whopper in 1998.

Just this year, Google, Twitter and YouTube all had their own pranks. In fact, April Fools’ day seems almost made for the Internet, where misinformation can live for a long time. YouTube was probably the best this year, declaring that the site now had enough videos and was ready to judge one clip as the best of the Internet.

Of course, there are the ever popular office pranks of messing with your coworker’s desk, gluing a quarter to the ground and watch how many people try to pick it up, gluing jars shut and so on. You do need to be careful about this stuff, because studies have shown office managers are far more likely to look down on April Fools’ pranks than they are about you organizing that NCAA bracket contest.

I haven’t ever been very good at April Fools’ pranks. My personal favorite was the time I put a rubber band around the spray nozzle on my parents’ kitchen sink. That

way, when the water was turned on, it sprayed whoever was standing at the sink. My mother was not amused, but she did get fairly wet.

And then there are the pranks that go wrong. Some of them go really, really wrong to the point that lives are put in danger. But most just get somebody in trouble. Of the latter, there is the infamous super-glue-on-a-toilet-seat incident from two years ago.

In short, the 48-year-old man found affixed to the toilet seat inside a Maryland Walmart was not seriously injured, but police did have to transport him to the hospital with the seat still attached. The “super glue bandit” was never caught.

But why do we do all of this on April 1? It might be due to a typo. A really, really old copying error in a volume of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales that originated in 1392.

Chaucer was apparently attempting to say 32 days “since March was gone,” or May 2. Instead, the manuscript read 32 days “since March began,” or April 1.

The specific story associated with the date was that of the vain rooster Chauntecleer being tricked by a fox. By the mid 1500s, April 1 was associated with pulling pranks like sending servants off on foolish errands.

As it happens, April Fools’ Day is mostly an English holiday, though it is also observed in Poland, France, Canada and elsewhere. But in other parts of the world, other days are reserved for pranks. In Denmark, it’s May 1. In Spain and Mexico, it’s Dec. 28.

Exactly why we celebrate pulling pranks on each other is, of course, just part of being human. What is interesting is that, for one day each year, we don’t mind nearly as much when we are the person who got pranked. In fact, we often celebrate our own embarrassment.

So whatever pranks you pulled this year, you’re probably safe from retaliation until next year. And the people got pranked have 12 months to come up with an ever better idea. And we’ll all wait to see what Google comes up with for next year.

But if you could just leave me out of it, I’d appreciate that.


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