Harmless pranks: fine. Great, even. Somewhere, my manager acquired a Halloween decoration of a witch riding an ear of corn. Predictably, the ear of corn looks more then a bit phallic. There has been an on-going battle of wills for years between my manager and my co-workers. The doll has been hidden in his house when we were there for a retreat; he retaliated by hanging it by fishing line 20 feet above my co-worker's desk. Back and forth, when you least expect it: there is the witch riding a dick. See? Harmless. No one is left feeling humiliated or disappointed.
Maybe my resistance to prank comes from years of being bullied to the point of tears on a daily basis, maybe it comes from the knowledge that there are SO many funny things in this world (Platypus! Goats that climb on top of shit! 30 Rock!) that I don't see the justification in making one person feel embarrassed for the purpose of amusing their peers. Use your words. Tell a joke.
I was four years-old the first time I learned that April Fool's Day is a day to tread upon lightly. My older sister was 12. When I sat down to breakfast that morning, there was a box of crayons sitting at my place at the table. A NEW box of crayons. We were solidly in the upper-lower-class to lower-middle-class income bracket at this point, so I NEVER got exciting luxuries like new, sharp crayons. My coloring books were full of carefully avoided edges, knowing that I could only make it into those tight nooks and corners with a sharpened crayon. I had tried using a crayon sharpener, but as anyone who has been a 4 year-old is aware, crayon sharpeners are bullshit. They just eat up your crayon and do absolutely nothing to get you into those nooks and corners in your coloring book.
I was obviously delighted with finding crayons for breakfast.
"Who is it from?" I asked.
"It's from me!" My sister gleefully replied. This seemed very suspicious.
"Why do I get a present?" I asked.
"Just because!" She was practically jumping out of her skin at this point. Vibrating. But, never one to look a gift box of crayons in the mouth, I decided to bank on the random acts of kindness that can sometimes be discovered in this crazy mixed-up world.
"Thank you SO much!" I cried, with genuine gratitude and joy in my tiny voice. My sister looked torn. She is not a cruel person. But April Fool's Day is nothing more then a free pass to psychologically torture siblings. She smiled kindly.
"You should open the box."
"Well, I don't want them to get broken," I said. I've always been very good at hoarding candy and treats. Best to save them for when I emotionally need them, rather then just use them because they're there. I had a plan for these crayons. Nooks. Corners.
"Just open them!" She said, with some urgency. In retrospect, her guilty conscience was betraying her at this point. She knew that the joke was only acceptable on one day of the year. If I opened them tomorrow, she knew she'd be emotionally responsible for my disappointment. But, on April Fool's Day, no one is responsible. It's not the fault of the prankster, it's the fault of the day.
Wanting to make my new benefactress happy, I opened the box. I was expecting to see all the crayons, points upward, in color spectrum order. Neat. Orderly. Perfect and unsullied. What I found was a box of broken chalk. Plain, white chalk. Stubs of chalk.
"This is full of chalk." I said, evenly. I was still naïve. I assumed it must have been a simple mistake, because what monster would play with the emotions of a child this way?
"I KNOW!" My sister leapt from her chair, and began gleefully leaping around the kitchen table. "APRIL FOOL'S DAY!"
Very funny, I thought. But she got this box somewhere. There are 6 sharp crayons somewhere in this house. And I wanted them.
"Where are the crayons?"
"There aren't any!" She said while continuing to Tigger around. "JUST CHALK!"
"Where did the box come from?"
"It's an old box! I found it in the junk drawer."
My lower lip, most frequently the initial chink in my poker face, started wavering. I realized that the emotional roller coaster I had just been put through had been designed and intended to disappoint me. My emotions were toyed with. For the amusement of someone else. Then the tears started. Big, fat, real tears.
"There…there aren't ANY new crayons?" I choked between sobs. My sister had stopped bouncing around.
"Well, I mean…I'm sure there are…at the store." A tsunami of tears broke from my face. A torrent of disappointment, humiliation and betrayal.
I've never trusted April 1st since that day, and plan to regard everyone I see with the suspicious, Judge Judy stare for the remainder of the day.
