Nobody's Fool

Can I tell you something?

I’m nobody’s fool. As regular readers of The Laughable Feast are aware, I’ve made an ass of myself on many occasions, more than I can recount – actually I can but you don’t need to know about all of them – and acted like an ass from time to time as well. But never have I been made a fool of on the first of April. My spotless record is a point of pride for me, but how hard is that to achieve? It’s called April Fools’ Day and when it comes around every year nobody, and I mean nobody, should be surprised when one of their so-called friends puts toothpaste in the Oreo cookies.

My wife Lori delights in April Fools pranks. Her whole family does. It’s like a religion to them. I’ll admit I’ve feigned surprise once in a while to avoid disappointing her, but the time I shit my pants when she screamed bloody murder in the shower was an unfortunate coincidence due to the burrito I’d had for lunch. Could’ve happened any other day. And when she called about the bad car accident and asked me to rush to St. Vincent’s ER, I cried like a baby, but only because it was a new car. So, as you can clearly see, I’m nobody’s fool.

But that’s not what I wanted to tell you.

The origin of April Fools’ Day is a matter of controversy. The English claim it was they who came up with the idea when Chaucer penned the Canterbury Tales back in 1392.

In the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, he wrote “a vain cock is tricked by a fox” and some thought his meaning was to inspire a tradition of stupid pranks. Sounds more like a movie I rented once at a Motel 6 in Pocatello, Idaho, but whatever.

The French have their own claim to April Fools’ Day of course because, well, they’re French. It seems that during the Middle Ages the whole of Europe marked New Year’s Day at the end of March. I’m guessing this was a dour celebration when they shit-canned the calendar from the previous year and grumbled amongst themselves, “When are these fucking dark ages going to end?” But the French had the bright idea to celebrate the new year on January 1st, it being the first day of the new year, and allegedly invented April Fools’ Day to make fun of the rest of Europe for missing the boat by three months. And to fart in their general direction.

Not to be outdone, the Dutch also claim April Fools’ Day as their creation and cite a battle fought in 1572 when they defeated the Spanish Duke Alvarez de Toledo apparently because he lost his eyeglasses. This epic moment in history inspired a Dutch proverb which translates to “On the first of April, Alva lost his glasses.” So, the theory goes that to celebrate the Duke’s unfortunate and consequential mishap, people should hide each other’s glasses or some such thing. This makes no sense whatsoever, especially when you consider pot has only been legal in the Netherlands since 1976.

But whatever the reason and whence it came, April Fools’ Day is a long-standing tradition celebrated in unique and special ways all around the world. In Britain, for example, rather than playing elaborate and emotionally ruinous tricks on each other, people mark the day by simply shouting “April Fool” at passers-by. Mindful of public excess, however, this craziness is only permitted before noon, after which time anyone who shouts “April Fool” is considered to be the fool themselves. How embarrassing would that be?

In Scotland they greet each other with the happy salutation “Huntigowk Day!” This comes as no surprise since nothing the Scots say is understandable. They’re probably drunk and just trying to say hello.

Whereas in Ireland the day is marked by the passing of important letters. Evidently, they didn’t get the memo about having fun, but using a written document is smart because you can’t understand a damn thing the Irish say either. Whatever they’re passing nowadays in Dublin on April 1st is most likely gas.

France, Belgium and Italy all mark the occasion with gay festivities and colorful costumes befitting of the Poisson d’Avril or “April Fish.” Why they choose to celebrate seafood on this day is baffling, but my guess is sometime during the 17th or 18th century there was a typo on some parchment, and no one wanted to point that out to whichever Louis was farting on the throne at the time. Spain is much more laid-back and doesn’t get around to celebrating April Fools’ Day until late December, and it seems like they should get fined for that. Poland of all places is famous for very intricate and sophisticated pranks, and I’m sure there’s a Polish joke in there somewhere but I’m going to leave it alone.

Americans take a decidedly more Jackass approach to April Fools’ Day and that makes perfect sense. Finesse is not in our DNA and what could possibly be funnier than getting hit in the nuts?

Many other countries have different interpretations of how to celebrate this, the oddest holiday of all, but frankly none of them are particularly amusing or interesting and this is a free post, so we need to move on.

The laws of probability dictate that unfunny events will occasionally occur on April 1st which people naturally assume are a hoax but aren’t. Like when in 1946 everyone had a good laugh about the report 165 people were killed by a tsunami after an earthquake in the Aleutian Islands. Or in 1984 when it was reported R&B superstar Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his own father. Nice touch if dad timed it on purpose. And in 1995 when Tejano superstar Selena was shot and killed on April 1st by the former president of her fan club, who evidently thought the election was rigged. And in 2004, Google launched Gmail, and everybody thought it was a joke. Millions still do.

But those morbid coincidences aside, there have been some quite intentional and very clever canards to mark the occasion, all of which generated large public waves of shock and protest. I don’t want to label entire ethnicities as fools, but when Denmark announced on April 1st in 1965 that all dogs in the country were to be painted white for safety reasons, would you have run out and bought a gallon of eggshell?

Or would you have marched in protest when the BBC revealed Big Ben was going digital, or when you learned the French government planned to dismantle the Eiffel Tower and move it to Euro Disney? How about when Taco Bell announced corporate sponsorship and was renaming one of our national treasures the Taco Liberty Bell?

Did you shell out an extra twelve bucks when in 2008 Canada’s WestJet offered their overhead luggage bins as “sleeper cabins”? Or buy a BMW in 2009 to take advantage of the revolutionary new “Magnetic Tow Technology” which would allow you to hook up to another car’s bumper and let them drag you down the autobahn to save gas?

And please tell me you southpaws out there did not stock up on Cottonelle when they rolled out their line of left-handed toilet paper.

Those were really good, but the consensus choice for best April Fools’ Day prank ever was when the BBC ran a beautifully scripted and filmed mockumentary chronicling the bountiful 1957 Swiss Spaghetti Harvest – worth a look on YouTube if you haven’t seen it. Everyone knows money doesn’t grow on trees but evidently thousands of Brits were willing to believe spaghetti does, many of whom called the BBC to inquire as to how they might start their own pasta plantation.

Truth be told, whoever came up with the idea, I applaud the concept and fully embrace celebrating a day of foolishness. In my opinion, every day should be April Fools’ Day. After all, what’s wrong with a little fun and frivolity in our lives, or laughing at ourselves? At least one day a year. So, go ahead and fool me once, fool me twice, and be a fool yourself.

Go paint the dog. Take to the streets to protest the debasement and defacement of our national treasures. Grab a nap in the overhead bin on a long flight. Rear-end the car in front of you and see if they’ll tow you home. Wipe your ass with your off hand. Have a big bowl of freshly harvested spaghetti. Whatever you do, have a little fun.

Thanks for listening. Talk soon.

Happy Birthday, Byrd and Mr. Bill!