Mrs. Teabody Commemorates "All Fools Day"

Good Morrow, Gentle Reader. As the hour is quite early, the window to Mrs. Teabody's left  offers no promise of morning, but one assumes the day will dawn, and it shall be one that gentle readers will not want to miss. Mrs. Teabody hopes many hours pass between her writing this missive  and your reading of it. Today is Sunday, the first day of April, the day traditionally known as "April Fools' Day." As Mr. Wikipedia writes: "April Fools' Day is celebrated in different countries in the Northern Hemisphere on April 1 every year. In the Southern Hemisphere it is celebrated six months later, on October 1. Sometimes referred to as All Fools' Day, April 1 is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when many people play all kinds of jokes and foolishness. The day is marked by the commission of good-humoured or otherwise funny jokes, hoaxes, and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, family members, teachers, neighbors, work associates, etc."

"Varying sophistication." This first. Many Gentle Readers were and/or are  made April Fools by  family members and/or school chums with this type of "funny joke." 


"Oh, look, your shoelace is untied."
"Oh, Dear, your zipper's down!"
Oh, My, someone's stolen your car."
"Oh, Heavens, a centipede just crawled from your nostril."
 At the first moment of response, the "wit" making the "jest" would point and cry, "April Fool."


Amusing? Ho, Gentle Reader. Hum, Gentle Reader.


Mr. Wikipedia further states: "In France and Italy children (and adults, when appropriate) traditionally tack paper fish on each other's back as a trick and shout "April fish!" in their local language ("poisson d'avril!" and "pesce d'aprile!" in French and Italian respectively)."


Mon Dieu! April FISH? Pardon, Gentle Reader, but Mrs. Teabody has lived a very long time and cannot recall ever having seen a paper fish just lying about. And how exactly does one "tack" a paper fish onto someone else's back? The mind positively reels. As this sort of jest may appeal to your sensibilities, however, Mrs. Teabody shall refrain from  further comment. 


Mrs. Teabody does recollect a morning in her girlhood when she spooned cold cereal into her mouth only to discover that her brother had replaced the sugar in the sugar bowl with salt.  Brother's  enjoyment of his little jest was as short-lived as the time it took for Mrs. Teabody's mother to cross the kitchen, but, nonetheless, this prank was a step farther along on the cleverness scale, do you not agree, Gentle Reader?


In school a chum would come to your side suddenly, shout, "Your shirt's on fire!" as he tugged your shirt from your waistband laughing uproariously, "Now it's out!" A bit further along the humor continuum, agree?


Mrs. Teabody was an April Fools' Day accomplice as a teen when  her trigonometry class turned all thirty desks in the classroom to face the rear of the room. The Trig teacher  was always late to class because of a lunch room duty, and the effort was worth it when a smile broke across her face, albeit a short-lived one.


From 1967 through 1980 Mrs. Teabody dreaded All Fools' Day because she drove VW Beetles, notoriously thrifty, notoriously nimble, and  notoriously light enough that four to six young men -- typically students - -  could easily place  the Beetle on  a sidewalk or  inside  a cemetery. Once Mrs. Teabody found the front end hanging over a stone wall. The last year Mrs. Teabody owned a Beetle, she was shocked to find her car parked as she'd left it the night before and  was momentarily hopeful that April Fools' nonsense had come to an end only to discover upon opening the car door that all the seats had been removed . . .  HardeeHarHarHar


Mrs. Teabody would be remiss if she did not explain that the "pranksters" always put the world back to rights, and Mrs. Teabody also firmly subscribes to the idea: No harm, no foul.

"The maple syrup's full of ants.

A mouse is creeping on a shelf.

Is that a spider on your back?

I ate the whole pie by myself.

The kitchen sink just overflowed.

A flash flood washed away the school.

I threw your blanket in the trash.

I never lie...

April Fool!" 

   ~Myra Cohn Livingston

Mr. Teabody has long dreamed of a world in which the penny becomes obsolete. He just called out from his office that his dream has begun to come true saying gleefully, "Canada will no longer make pennies!" Mrs. Teabody so hopes that Mr. Teabody has not been made someone's April Fool.  She hopes you are not made one either.

Ta for now!