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“What's the best April Fools prank you've ever done or heard of?” I asked Husband-Head curiously.
Husband-Head thought for a moment.
“Well, it wasn't on April Fool's Day, but I did have my fingers crossed behind my back when we got married,” he said with a grin.
I punched him in the arm.
“No seriously,” I insisted. “I'm trying to think of a good prank to pull.”
Husband-Head's eyes narrowed.
“It better not be on me,” he warned.
Then he began to laugh.
“I think the best one I ever heard of was when that guy had a free monkey to give away.”
I hadn't thought about that story in years.
A classified ad had appeared in the newspaper that read, “Free monkey to good home. Housebroken, very well behaved, has shots. Carl.”
I had called Husband-Head at work to tell him about it and told him I was interested in the monkey. But when I called Carl, it turned out he didn't have a monkey at all, although he'd gotten more than 100 calls from people wanting the monkey.
“Everyone wants the monkey,” he told me. “But I don't have a free monkey, nor would I give one away if I did. I like monkeys. But there is NO MONKEY!”
Apparently, some of his friends had played an April Fools joke on him.
But, determined to find another good prank, I began to do a little research. Since April Fools falls on a work day this year, I decided to look up some things one could do in the office. What better way to get back at your boss or co-workers under the auspices that it's all just an innocent holiday joke?
These are some of the ones I came up with::
• Either late on March 31 or very early on April 1, sneak into your co-worker's work space that is closely shared with another and unplug their two phone lines and re-plug them in with the lines crossed. Both victims will go nuts trying to figure out why they're getting each other's calls...
• When your co-worker is away, go into their computer and change the language setting to, like, Chinese. Then watch and laugh as they struggle to translate the setting instructions to get it back to English...
(I actually did this one to my own self on my computer one time just as a hoot and it took me HOURS to get it right again.)
• Coordinate everyone in your office to play a practical joke on your boss. Throughout the day, each person should email, voicemail or leave a note for the boss, saying they need extended time off. Each person should give a different explanation: pregnancy, sick family member, etc.
This one is all fun and games until somebody finds themselves in the unemployment line.
• Leave a phone message for the victim that says a “Mr. Lyon” or “Mr. Behr” wants to be called back. Then leave the number of the local zoo...
• Borrow all the pictures and family photos from your co-worker's desk. Scan the photos and, using a photo-editing program, put monkey faces on all of them. Print them out and put them back on your co-worker's desk.
• If your co-worker uses Microsoft Word, go into their computer and change the auto-correct feature so it misspells common words. Just open Word, choose “AutoCorrect Options” from the Tools menu and have it replace common words like “the” and “and” with words like “eggplant” and “sonofabitch.” Be creative.
• Sneak onto your co-worker's computer and change their default font color to white. This will cause some confusion as their writing will suddenly be invisible.
This prank, of course, is especially fun if you work for a newspaper ... and you're on deadline...
Then there are always the classic pranks, such as offering to make someone a sandwich and leaving the plastic wrap on the slice of cheese; glue a quarter to the ground in a busy area and watching as people try to pick it up; or reset all the clocks ahead two hours, so the person wakes up and panics that they're late for work.
“These are great, but there's just one problem,” Husband-Head as he looked over my list. “You work at home.”
Oh.
I went back to do research on what kind of pranks you can play on your pets...
— Heidi Rice is a columnist for the Citizen Telegram and Post Independent. Her column appears every Friday in the PI. Visit her website at www.heidirice for more columns or to purchase her book collection. Heidi can be reached at hrice@rof.net.
Husband-Head thought for a moment.
“Well, it wasn't on April Fool's Day, but I did have my fingers crossed behind my back when we got married,” he said with a grin.
I punched him in the arm.
“No seriously,” I insisted. “I'm trying to think of a good prank to pull.”
Husband-Head's eyes narrowed.
“It better not be on me,” he warned.
Then he began to laugh.
“I think the best one I ever heard of was when that guy had a free monkey to give away.”
I hadn't thought about that story in years.
A classified ad had appeared in the newspaper that read, “Free monkey to good home. Housebroken, very well behaved, has shots. Carl.”
I had called Husband-Head at work to tell him about it and told him I was interested in the monkey. But when I called Carl, it turned out he didn't have a monkey at all, although he'd gotten more than 100 calls from people wanting the monkey.
“Everyone wants the monkey,” he told me. “But I don't have a free monkey, nor would I give one away if I did. I like monkeys. But there is NO MONKEY!”
Apparently, some of his friends had played an April Fools joke on him.
But, determined to find another good prank, I began to do a little research. Since April Fools falls on a work day this year, I decided to look up some things one could do in the office. What better way to get back at your boss or co-workers under the auspices that it's all just an innocent holiday joke?
These are some of the ones I came up with::
• Either late on March 31 or very early on April 1, sneak into your co-worker's work space that is closely shared with another and unplug their two phone lines and re-plug them in with the lines crossed. Both victims will go nuts trying to figure out why they're getting each other's calls...
• When your co-worker is away, go into their computer and change the language setting to, like, Chinese. Then watch and laugh as they struggle to translate the setting instructions to get it back to English...
(I actually did this one to my own self on my computer one time just as a hoot and it took me HOURS to get it right again.)
• Coordinate everyone in your office to play a practical joke on your boss. Throughout the day, each person should email, voicemail or leave a note for the boss, saying they need extended time off. Each person should give a different explanation: pregnancy, sick family member, etc.
This one is all fun and games until somebody finds themselves in the unemployment line.
• Leave a phone message for the victim that says a “Mr. Lyon” or “Mr. Behr” wants to be called back. Then leave the number of the local zoo...
• Borrow all the pictures and family photos from your co-worker's desk. Scan the photos and, using a photo-editing program, put monkey faces on all of them. Print them out and put them back on your co-worker's desk.
• If your co-worker uses Microsoft Word, go into their computer and change the auto-correct feature so it misspells common words. Just open Word, choose “AutoCorrect Options” from the Tools menu and have it replace common words like “the” and “and” with words like “eggplant” and “sonofabitch.” Be creative.
• Sneak onto your co-worker's computer and change their default font color to white. This will cause some confusion as their writing will suddenly be invisible.
This prank, of course, is especially fun if you work for a newspaper ... and you're on deadline...
Then there are always the classic pranks, such as offering to make someone a sandwich and leaving the plastic wrap on the slice of cheese; glue a quarter to the ground in a busy area and watching as people try to pick it up; or reset all the clocks ahead two hours, so the person wakes up and panics that they're late for work.
“These are great, but there's just one problem,” Husband-Head as he looked over my list. “You work at home.”
Oh.
I went back to do research on what kind of pranks you can play on your pets...
— Heidi Rice is a columnist for the Citizen Telegram and Post Independent. Her column appears every Friday in the PI. Visit her website at www.heidirice for more columns or to purchase her book collection. Heidi can be reached at hrice@rof.net.
