Who would have guessed that one of my favorite holidays would be April Fool's Day?
I think there is a fine art to playing practical jokes on people and one of the key factors is that it not be mean spirited. That being said, I want to tell you about a practical joke I played on someone many years ago that sort of took on a life of it's own.
I had a friend, let's call her "Mary". Mary's car was at the mechanic and she was driving a rental car. She returned the car to the rental car company on March 30th. That's when I decided to pull a cute little practical joke. On April 1st, I had a friend of mine call Mary's phone and leave a message. My friend identified himself as the manager of the rental car company and that when they cleaned the car they had found some drug paraphernalia under one of the car seats and asked her to call and clear things up otherwise they'd have to call the police. Then my friend left my phone number. I had recorded a special voice mail wishing Mary a happy April Fool's Day.
That was supposed to be how the joke happend. It didn't turn out that way.
When Mary got the message, she got so flustered that instead of pushing the button to save the message, she pushed the button to delete the message. That meant that she didn't have the number to call. So, she called the phone company to see if they could un-erase the message. After getting transfered to a couple of people, she found out they couldn't.
Next she got to work and immediately went in to talk to her boss. She told her boss about the message and SWORE that whatever was found under the seat WASN'T hers. Her boss believed her and said that maybe they should contact the company lawyers about this. Then Mary decided to call the car rental company and try to talk to them about it.
Understandably, the manager at Hertz had no idea what she was talking about, but he said that the other manager may have made the call, but the other manager was off that day. Mary begged him to call the other manager and find out. He said he would and then call her back. Within a few minutes, Mary's phone rang. It was the manager she had just talked to. He said that he had talked to the other manager and that he hadn't made the call, but wondered if she realized that it was April Fool's Day.
Immediately I became the prime suspect.
Minutes later my phone rang and it was Mary telling me that she had just gotten off the phone with Hertz. I couldn't stand it anymore. I just erupted into laughter as she told me the whole story.
And that is my story of how a prank went horribly wrong, took on a life of it's own and became the Best April Fool's Day Joke EVER!