I bet you were expecting a monthly recap today.

Well, April Fool’s! You’re not getting it.

Tune back in tomorrow.

I was actually going to sign off here and link to something I wrote about April Fool’s Day years ago and kind of have an easy post today…but I couldn’t find the post I wrote in the past. Maybe I imagined it?

So really, the joke’s on me because I have to put in the work.

I used to go a little nuts on April Fool’s Day.

One year I taped a bunch of stuff in my sister’s room to the ceiling. That was a great one. (I think I read a book of pranks or something and I knew that was a pretty harmless one.)

I got some gag gifts at a shop somewhere and I put some fake poop on the floor in my parents’ bedroom. That one almost got the dog in trouble. I quickly fessed up.

I also prank called my house from a pay phone around the corner - I might have been pranking my sister’s boyfriend, but calling him at my house instead of his? It was one of those prank calls where I asked for someone who wasn’t there - “Is Fred there?” - that type of thing. (Again, I remember my sister’s boyfriend being a target…but also that I called my house. Or maybe he had caller ID [we didn’t] and that’s why I called from the pay phone instead of our house. Maybe that was it.) And after asking for Fred a few times I called back and said, “This is Fred. Anyone call for me?”

Good, harmless fun.

As time went on and social media became more prevalent, I feel like pranks became a little harsher. Or maybe I just outgrew them.

Or people with no sense of humor tried to show they had one and messed up badly. (Very few corporations do April Fool’s Day right.)

When I became a teacher I kind of dreaded April Fool’s Day. It was hard to explain it’s only funny if everyone is in on the joke.

Maybe I just got less fun.

I would never prank my daughters. I don’t think they’d love it. I probably wouldn’t either.

So I don’t really care to recognize April Fool’s Day anymore.

But today is April 1st, and I feel like I can’t ignore it.

So we’ll postpone the monthly recap for a day.