Happy Late April Fool's Day

I have this love-hate relationship with April Fool's day.

On one hand, I love it because people can get really creative with their pranks and make me smile. I am not talking about immature high school pranks such as spray painting a giant penis on campus (still not impressed with that, class of '06). I'm talking about carefully crafted yarns that are ridiculous but believable. They draw you in because they are so over-the-top and make you wonder "is this for real?" But then it dawns on you that you've been had and (guess what?) been made a fool.

On the other hand, I hate the day because I always end up as the fool.

I suppose I'm just a gullible kind of guy. If I trust the person I'm talking to, then I am usually inclined to believe what he or she says. Sometimes people have gone too far and played some dirty tricks on me (which I will not get into), but for most of the time they do it in the spirit of good jest.

I once had a Spanish teacher who got me pretty good on April 1st. He showed me a picture of himself from a vacation in Florida. In the picture, he was standing on a street corner. Behind him was a street sign with his same last name. He told me that he got the city to name the street after him. "Wow," I said, "how did you do that?" He then smiled and admitted this wasn't true. Ha, ha. Nice one, Dr. G.

So here's a late toast to the Day of Fools. Cheers.