There is nothing like a good April Fools Prank.  That is, as long as no one is being hurt.  It helps if the victim, er, I mean fool has a good sense of humor.

Way back around the turn of the century.  That would be the one in 2000.  I happened to be working at one of the greatest places on earth, with the best bunch of people.  All hard workers with a wicked sense of humor. 

March 31st of that year the Wheel of Karma landed on JACKPOT.  Catty the customer service manager, and Sparky the health & beauty manager happened to be closing the health food/training center empire where we were employed. 

Sparky stopped by my cubicle and pointed out that the next day would be April Fools Day.  She though it would be fun to play a prank on our grocery manager, Barry.  So we sat around for a while brainstorming what would work on Barry.  We talked about what Barry was passionate about in the store.  Where did he put the most effort, what was his baby?

More than anywhere else in that store, Barry was most proud of our wine section.  He carefully selected the best wines.  Local, national, and international wines graced our shelves.  He had both expensive and inexpensive, as well as certified organic wines.  He took great care arranging them, signing them, displaying them and educating the customers and employees about them.  This store had a beautiful wine section and Barry's care really showed.

Then Sparky and I started talking about things that annoyed Barry.  Employees not doing what they were supposed to be doing.  You know, slackers.  People not realizing the place was a training center for people with disabilities even though it clearly stated the mission on every piece of paper, bags, doors, etc.  People who would not discipline their children.

Barry wasn't alone, especially on that last point.  It didn't matter if you had signs warning parents about keeping their infants strapped into the carts.  Every week we would come across some 10 month old standing (or trying to stand) in the seat section of a cart while it's parents were two aisles over selecting organic cereal to keep the kid healthy.  DUH!  Kids would push the carts around like the aisles were a drag racing strip.  You would catch some kid crawling under a display case and tell the kid, "No, come out from under there."  This was a sure fire way to catch a parents attention.  But the parent would usually say something like, "We don't tell little Timmy no.  It stifles his creativity."  Then they walk off in a huff.  Sometimes with the child in tow.

Sparky and I had hatched a plan.  We were going to combine something Barry loved with something Barry hated.  God we were evil.  It was going to be so much fun.

First we emptied a wire display case that was filled with really expensive bottles of imported wine.  Then we cleared out a near by shelf of wine.  We hid the wine and made a list of all the wine we hid with it's price.  I think we had hidden about $300 to $400 dollars retail of good wine.

Next we wrote Barry a letter:

Dear Barry,

Last night, shortly before closing, a woman came in to do some shopping with her 4 year old child.  While she was shopping the child was pushing the cart up and down the aisles.   At some point the child was racing down the wine aisle when he hit the wire organic Italian wine rack and knocked it into the shelf of organic Australian wines.  Unfortunately, most of the bottles of Italian and many of the Australian wines broke.  We cleaned it up and made a list of the broken bottles and their prices for you.

The mother came tearing down the aisle and grabbed the child.  She then started yelling about how we could possibly put something so dangerous as a glass filled wire rack someplace that someone's child might be harmed by it.  She was really angry and she wants you to call her to tell her what you are going to do about this.

Sorry to throw this in your lap, but she wanted to talk to the store manager, no one else would do.  Catty and Sparky

Her name is Linda and her phone number is 555-5555. 

Then to keep Barry from passing this to the Big Boss (Executive Director), we brought the Big Boss in on it too.  He was going to make sure Barry called the number.

I don't know how we managed it, but Sparky and I kept a straight face while he questioned both of us the next day.  He made comments about how much force it would have taken to knock the wire rack into the shelves.  We were dying inside.  Then he told us he was going to wait for the Big Boss to come in and see how he wanted it handled.  We could tell he was really burning angry over it.

When the Big Boss came in, he told Barry to call her and apologize.  We highly suspect that Barry wanted to give the woman some lessons on parenting but he dialed the number with hat in hand to tell her that we would display the wine in a much safer manner. 

Thing is, the number was my answering machine where I left an outgoing message repeating the phone number and saying, "if this is Barry we would like to wish him a happy April Fools Day."  He was both mad and laughing and he cursed us the rest of the day.  It was great!

Is that big G for gullible flashing on my forehead?  This morning on CNN, I'm watching a story on how the Catholic Church is outraged at the scandal of an artist who depicted the crucified Christ in chocolate.  They were calling it, Sweet Jesus. 

If you are going to be outraged by something, maybe it should be that the chocolate was harvested by child/slave labor.  Thanks to Blackphi , we now know that the chocolate we eat has a dark side.  No pun intended.  Check it out. 

There are so many terrible problems and scandals this world faces, a chocolate Jesus is NOT one of them.

tags: april fools  pranks  humor  funny  chocolate  jokes  

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