SUCKERRRRRRR!!!!

Once a time every year comes along the day when nearly every person tries to get the practical joker inside them going. April fool’s Day; Nobody is exactly sure of how the whole tradition got started but everybody knows that playing a prank is a must on this day. Being a part of the crowd who prefer clowning around as much as possible, this is the one day I'm blessed with to get back at them.

Over the years I’ve played quite a few pranks and been a host to some of them as well. Some tricks that I’ve gotten to my credit include feeding people crushed dog biscuits claiming them as my baked goodies. I remember one of my friends going, “Saadi! You put too much salt in these crackers!”, poor girl. I later treated my victims to a soda over which I confessed. I guess you can predict what came next, me drenched from head to toe in Pepsi. Talk about getting yourself in sticky situations!

Some other minor pranks include making people take bogus surveys only to email them later the real deal. This crowd took it relatively well, no Pepsi showers this time. Another year I managed to send a friend of mine on a wild goose chase to pick up a raffle ticket award that was non-existent. We also booked an appointment at a waxing parlor for a friend of mine. A few days before April Fool, we were over at his place and made that call. It wasn’t a pretty sight when the parlor called to confirm the appointment, it was received by his mother. Poor fellow, the look on his face when he was confronted! His mother later had a good laugh over it when we told her it was our doing. Being an American Idol Enthusiast, it’s pretty natural that I have friends in the same league. On a particular April, I claimed the elimination of a favorite contestant. Everybody found the news very shocking and one girl went to the point of tears. However the telecast uplifted their moods but sadly also got me a good dose of nasty pinching from some of the ladies.

While it’s fun to play tricks on people it’s even more fun to be on the receiving end. It’s really funny to see people utilizing their creativity to come up with the best prank, only if this creativity was utilized during writing English compositions. Speaking of English, our English Teacher back in 8th Grade played a prank on us once. She made us write 2500 words English Composition on World Policies. To an eighth grader, 2500 words is a really big deal. And given the topic World Policies meant mass research and watching the news every single night. It was something we didn’t enjoy at all. It kept coming to us that it could be a practical joke but nobody dared to ask the lady who was the institution all by herself. When she revealed to us that it was a joke we let out a huge sigh of relief, she was also kind enough to add that had she taken them into account it would ruin our yearly averages.

Another time I feel prey to a water balloon shower. But given the hot day it was all my pleasure. And so better than the Pepsi drenching! Another friend of mine replaced my test-tube of acid with water which lead me to repeat the entire experiment again. Upon confession I was far too tired to do anything but I got back at him a few days later with a freak test. He failed by the way; this was in co-operation with my chemistry professor.

However the cake is taken away by an incident that was in no way a prank. We actually intended to throw a friend of ours a congratulation party at a restaurant. The poor fellow thought we were playing a trick on him and didn’t come. When we realized that he has conceived it as a prank, instead of calling him again we had ourselves a ball, took loads of pictures which we flaunted openly in front of him later. I can never forget the look on his face. But we weren't that cruel, we got a chocolate marshmallow cake and celebrated a much smaller version of the party. Just between us, we were in the mood for another chocolate marshmallow cake so we went ahead with it. Obviously, it was totally at his expense. Poor fellow, got duped twice!

April Fools Day has always given loads of good memories. I added a few just yesterday and these were on an International Level. I had a blast! But now it’s time to hang the joker’s hat for another year. Let’s see what I have in store next time!

Copyright © Saad Khan 2009 (Karachi, Pakistan; saadkhalidkhan@gmail.com)