05 April 2018
April Fools’ Day
Planning a prank.
By Chin Chin
The beginning of April is always a problem. In flies one of the children with some story about the car having been stolen from the drive during the night; convincing it was, too, after that poisoning business in Salisbury. You can’t trust those Russians an inch nowadays and Putin would probably like a nice Ford with cow-hide seat covers. He wouldn’t mind that they are slightly worn, either. After all, his image is that of a man of action, and what hero on horseback ever complained that the saddle had scratch marks on it? No, if they looked for a bare-chested chap with a Russian accent, the police would get their man, as I was explaining to them over the phone when the wretched child shouted “April Fool!” and everyone started laughing. Apparently they had just moved the car round the corner and had told the local police to expect the call. The police thought it was funny too. I think the whole bloody pack of them must be retarded because anyone sensible could see that it was a silly joke and not amusing at all.
Still, it made me think a bit. It was only ten in the morning so there were two hours left for April fools jokes. Perhaps I should play one. After all, I have a fine sense of humour, as they will tell you down at the Dog and Duck where people get so carried away by my funny stories that they often have to leave halfway through in case they have convulsions. Yes, I should enter into the spirit of the occasion and play a joke on someone. The question was, who and what should the joke be?
Well, this year, April Fools Day fell on Easter Sunday, so the time for playing jokes was reduced because many of the targets would be at church. Maybe I could make use of that and arrange for some sort of joke at morning service. It would have to be subtle, though. The old one about cutting the relevant pages out of the hymn books may be very amusing when you do it, but people get awfully angry afterwards and the Parochial Church Council makes you pay for a new set of hymn books. No, it had to be cleverer than that – say something to do with the service itself? Say I collapsed during one of the hymns and then pretended to rise from the dead three minutes later? That would certainly be relevant! But on the other hand, I thought, perhaps not. I have read a bit of the Old Testament in my day and you really don’t want to make an enemy of the Almighty. His treatment of the prophets of Baal went a long way beyond making them pay for hymn books. No, that was definitely out. The joke had to be something more secular.
Well then, another approach. What about picking on someone who had tried to mock me over the year and taking the opportunity to get my own back? Yes, that was a better plan. I would get my revenge and they would have to find it funny or look like a bad sport. Well, what was it to be? It had to be a joke which would become evident before midday, since otherwise I would be out of time. That ruled out the old one of nailing a kipper to the bottom of their dining table so that they pulled up the drains trying to get rid of the smell. It’s a top joke but just takes too long to mature. So do most of my other favourites like advertising their house for sale, or sending a bogus letter from the council saying that the new railway will run through their garden. Things like that take preparation and cannot be rustled up in a couple of hours.
I needed something more immediate, but it had to be a joke which others would appreciate. For example, I would love to let down the car tyres of the people opposite who objected to our new garage. I would find that hilarious, but I’m not quite sure that the police would see it in the same light and I really don’t want six months for causing criminal damage.
That didn’t seem to leave very much and there wasn’t even time to go to the library to have a look at a good “pranks” book. Perhaps, though, the answer was not to try to improvise, but simply to pass on the joke which had been played upon me. All I needed to do was to go up the drive opposite, knock on the door and say that I had just seen their car being driven away by a man with a heavy Russian accent. That should do it. They keep the car in a garage so it wouldn’t have been sitting behind me spoiling the story. I decided to get going right away. On second thoughts, no, I was too late. The church clock was striking midday.
