April Fool's Memories

 Ah, April Fool's Day. A favorite holiday of my inner child.

I'm not quite sure what it was about April Fool's Day in my youth, but I used to go totally nuts for it. To the point, even, where I questioned why the first of every month wasn't a "Fool's Day". One year, I do believe I tried to make "May Fool's" a thing. 

It's such a silly day, a day where you can, within reason, say or do anything and laugh. 

My mother would often start the morning by asking me to pick up something off the floor that wasn't there. It was kind of a tradition. But once it got going, it became so exciting to me. I would sit in school all day with my guard up, but at the same time, I would be trying to cook up pranks and jokes. I don't even know how many I actually ever followed through on, but the invitation to get into a little mischief was just so enticing. I was pretty serious as a kid, almost afraid to be silly. I guess it just felt like an excuse to let loose and have a little fun. 

Some pranks I do remember playing were hiding toy mice around the kitchen while my mother was cooking (I had a collection of semi-realistic ones that were meant to be cat toys; later they started making them with neon pink ears, which I've always assumed was because the original ones just looked too real.), convincing my father that a piece of chalk was a mint, and the one that got me in the most trouble: when I somehow came up with the idea to replace the soap in the dispenser in the kitchen with just plain water. For some reason this sent my parents over the edge. I had to pay for new soap out of my allowance, and I believe this was actually the first instance where I realized what "growing up" meant (I was probably eight or nine at the time.) and realized I didn't want to. I decided I wanted to continually fail in high school so that they'd never let me leave. I obviously didn't follow through with that, but still. 

Something else that I think was instrumental in my love for April Fool's Day in childhood, was the way Nickelodeon, my kids' network of choice since we didn't have the Disney Channel or Cartoon Network in my childhood home, truly treated it like a major holiday. They had special episodes, such as my annual traditional rewatch, the April Fool's episode of The Adventures Of Pete & Pete (I believe Little Pete was my main inspiration to try to go bigger with my pranks the year of the water in the soap incident.), and even joke commercials, such as Nick Takes Over Your Chicken, which has lived rent free in my head ever since. There's some part of me that tries to chase that high of my childhood April Fool's Days every year. I'm not sure why. It just felt special. 

I remember one year, when for some reason I wasn't able to celebrate as much, feeling down about it and ending my night by playing on some e-card site, throwing eggs at a cartoon man in a jester costume, with a voice over saying "You got the April Fool!" when you'd hit him. I remember feeling really sad that year, as if it was the last time I'd ever celebrate April Fool's as a child. And maybe it was...I really don't remember when I stopped thinking of it as a major holiday. 

These days I'm never quite sure what to do for an April Fool's joke. Every year I consider posting on my main accounts that I'm giving up the year-round Halloween life, but I doubt anyone would believe me anyway. I do get a kick out of companies' joke ads and emails, and sometimes I still fall for funny things people post online. If there's any small thing I can do to get into the spirit, I most definitely will do it. 

And this year, it's just nice to be able to have a place to talk about it.