[Groop]April Fool's Day

[Larry Steller]

Mark mentions on www.POVonline.com a great April Fool's Day gag
the Cartoon Network pulled a while back. 

I won't ruin it for those of you who haven't read it yet, but you
folks DO check his site out regularly, right?

Anyway, since things are still pretty slow on this list, I
thought I'd bore you all with some of my favorite April Fool's
Day pranks and solicit you to send in yours! Hey, maybe we can
inspire each other to even FURTHER levels of madness!!!
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MONOPOLY MONEY:

Every April 1st, I like to put Monoploy Money in my wallet, and
when I do business at a store where I'm friendly with the clerks
(very important!!!) I attempt to pay with Monoploy Money.

If I have an important meeting that day at work, I pick a partner
in crime WHO IS NORMALLY NOT ASSOCIATED WITH PRANKS (for greatest
impact) and give them a $10, $5 and five $1's in Monopoly money.
While waiting for the meeting to start, I ask if anyone has
change of a $20, wait a beat, then pull out a Monopoly $20.
Before anyone can react to this nonsense (if it goes well) my
partner in crime pulls out his/her Monopoly money and makes
change.

I've gotten some INTENSE reactions to this! One straight-laced
cutlery buyer blubbered incoherently "wha-wha-WHAT!!!???" She
could NOT get over that the quiet, mousey girl I had co-opted
ACTUALLY HAD CHANGE for MONOLOPY MONEY!!!
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PIGGIES:

Another good one is to take a sound effects CD and pop it into
someone's CD-ROM drive the night before and set their computer to
play the CD at start-up. I set up my buddies computer to start up
with the sound of pigs grunting and squealing...
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PHONE-A-FRIEND:

My sister and I have a lifelong-running April Fool's Day feud,
and it's getting near impossible to fake each other out. Linda
used to work for the New York Yankees as  a secretary in Media
Relations, and I loved to call her and disguise my voice.

One year I put on a fake Good Old Boy Southern Accent and said
(in an angry voice) something like:

Larry: "Hi, my name is Lance Boyle and I represent Mr. Bo Jackson
and I hafta tell you we are PISSED AS HELL that word leaked of
the impending deal that would put Bo in Pinstripes. I wanna know
RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW how you folks could drop the ball like
this..."

Linda: "Well if you'll hold on a moment I'll transfer you to..."

Larry: "YOU'LL TRANFER ME TO NO ONE because right now I'M TALKIN'
TO YOU and I want to know WHAT you are gonna do about this, and
how you thought you could get away with (accent changing back to
my voice)  this travesty, because this is NOT Lance Boyle but
really your brother Lawrence disguising his voice, happy April
Fool's Day...

When my nephew turned 3 years old (his birthday is April 3) BLUES
CLUES had yet to be merchandised at all (how times change), and
she had asked me to try and find BLUE merchandise in the city. I
told her (on April 1st) that I had gone to Nickelodeon's
Corporate Offices in NYC on my lunch break (sncker, snicker) to
see if they could point me in the right direction, and I happened
to run into STEVE (from BLUES CLUES) just as he was leaving. We
struck up a conversation, it turns out his parents live in the
same town as my sister and he was going to be visiting them on
the day of my nephew's party, and he would LOVE to stop by and
say hello...

To quote Mr. B. Bunny, "Ain't I a Stinker?"

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ONE MORE AND THEN I'LL GO:

Years ago I had 5 out of 6 employees in my bosses group call in
sick on April 1st FROM THEIR DESKS at work. My boss walked in to
our aisle and started saying "Well Doug, looks like it'll be just
me and y..." and then noticed everyone sitting at their desks...

The following year, he sort of got his revenge. You see, he was
ACTUALLY HOSPITALIZED the morning of April 1 with a kidney stone
and, since I was the first one in to work, had me tell my
coworkers he was out and why. First he had to convince me it
wan't a prank, and then the biggest joker in the department had
to convince everyone else that, HONEST, he really IS in the
hospital. No this is NOT an APRIL FOOL'S prank, REALLY!!!


=====
-Larry Steller
New York, New York

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