April Fool

It's Friday night and here I am, happily filling my gullet with Coke and beef jerky - or petrified horse anus, if you prefer. I was reminded today that I completely took a Mulligan on February, hence ending my consecutive month string of at least one entry. Now I have to start from scratch if I'm ever going to pass Anais Nin for most consecutive months of blogging. I'll also probably need to live far into the 21st century when the polar ice caps will be no larger than the par-4 at your local miniature golf course.

The pressure. It's unbelievable.

As many of you know, we are on the cusp of one of the most useless "holidays" on the calendar. No, I'm not talking about Valentine's Day or Bring Your Mother to Confession Day. I'm talking about April Fool's Day. A little history here...nah, forget it. Suffice to say that we've all fallen prey to some knucklehead screaming "April Fools!" in our faces. The shame registers long enough for them to escape before you can organize your head in order to say, "Ok, now I must kill you." With kids, it's a little trickier. They giggle and snort their way through their joke, and before you can reach for the Ritalin bottle, they drop the punchline and squeal in triumphant delight. Since they're kids, all you can do is smile patronizingly and think, "Ok, I'll wait until you reach 18 and THEN I must kill you - or send you to college on the other side of the country." Then you head out to Barnes & Noble and buy up all the S.A.T. study guides for your precocious 3rd grader.

April Fool's Day is such a slippery beast. If you're like me...God help you. If you're like me, you get up on a typical April 1st, greet the sun with a soft, warm middle finger, go through your routine, get in the car, flip on the radio where the hosts are playing grab-ass with each other and hitting on every female caller when they announce that the listener with the best April Fool's Day story will win backstage passes to whatever members of the Doobie Brothers are alive and playing at the local VFW hall the following weekend. Good times. Then, you get to work, flip on the computer and...completely forget it's April Fool's Day. You log onto you favorite sports chat forum and see a thread entitled, "Cincinnati Reds moving to Havana". Still not aware of the cloud of idiocy that has invaded the weather system above your desk and completely ignoring the ironic Cold War reference to the "Reds" relocating to Cuba, you click on it, ready to throw your mighty two cents into the fray when you discover some wise-ass kid completely owned you the second you clicked on the link. Immediately following the mental wedgie you just endured, you begin to take inventory of all your academic and intellectual awards, scores and platitudes and conclude, "It's official. I'm getting stupider." This, of course, sets off a chain reaction of self-doubt triggered by the question of whether or not "stupider" is a word or if you should have used "more stupid" instead. Naturally, a Battle Royal erupts in your brain, with neurons and synapses and such being cut down like grain. Eventually, a regal, almost Zen-like calm overtakes your senses and you realize it's 11:30.

Maybe April Fool's Day would be worth celebrating if people actually put a little thought into their tricks.

Instead of: "Hey, the boss called and he said he needs the reports by noon instead of next week"
Try: "Hey, a guy on the night cleaning crew was fired today. They just found out he pissed in the coffee maker last night. What's that, your third cup?"

Instead of: "Dude, your mom was hitting on me yesterday"
Try: "Dude, you do realize that you had a snot hanging in your nose the entire time you were talking to that chick, right? Seriously."

Instead of: Telling your buddy you have a tape of you and his girlfriend having sex.
Try: Sending him the tape

Any one of these suggestions is a sure-fire way to lose old friends, make new enemies, and generally make you one of most reprehensible people on the planet.

But, hey, at least you'll have a shot at seeing the Doobie Brothers next year.