I have a pretty good sense of humor. I can laugh at myself. I frequently make jokes at my own expense. I take teasing pretty well — definitely better than when I was young! — and am always willing to look silly for a good cause. I also enjoy surprises: I’ve had a couple of surprise parties thrown for me and those were wonderful. Dan often plans secret outings for birthdays, and once I arrived at a stand-up comedy show featuring the boyfriend of a dear friend only to have that very friend show up unexpectedly! These kinds of surprises are grounded in love and affection and don’t scare anybody.
April Fool’s Day is generally terrible.
I don’t like feeling foolish, and I hate being scared. April Fool’s Day pranks usually end up making me feel both of these things. I find the concept of fake news stories broadcast on radio and television to be alarming: first of all, in our current climate it is difficult to parse what is fake and what is real and simply horrifying. Second of all, look at what happened with The War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938. Yes, I was fascinated and entertained listening to it and reading about its affects on the public… when I was in college in 1997. Now it feels like gross negligence, to be perfectly honest. Ugh, who am I?
The problem I’ve found with April Fool’s — particularly with children — is that it ends up being hurtful, sometimes literally. They insult each other, and then say, “April Fool’s!” One student said she pulled the chair out from under one of her friends as an April Fool’s joke. Girlie, that’s not a joke — that’s a concussion-in-waiting. Please don’t hide around the corner and jump out at me, please don’t sneak up behind and tickle me — these things aren’t jokes, they are jump-scares and I HATE THEM.
I have a particular distaste for when “pranks” set people up to be excited for something and it leads to disappointment. The relatively harmless example is the teachers who tell their kids they brought brownies for them… only to pull out a pan full of cut-out, brown, letter Es. Yes, it is clever. But if I did it I’d immediately pull out an actual pan of brownies so I wouldn’t have sad kids. The worst example is admittedly from an episode of The Simpsons: the parents tell their kids they are going to Disneyland, and instead they took them to the dentist. Horrible.
I will admit to liking pranks that frustrate my students just a wee bit. This year, there’s been a trend going around where all the teachers in a school agree on an Underground Dress Up Day, and don’t tell the kids. Then, when the kids figure it out, the teachers play dumb. We did it for a week in the fall and it was AMAZING. We started out with a Sandals-n-Socks day (which felt awful but hey, I’m a team player) and it was so funny to see students doing double takes. By the time we got to Anything-But-A-Water-Bottle Day (I drank my water from a pitcher, somebody had a vase with a straw, and my teammate Maggie had a squirt bottle she sprayed into her mouth all day long) the kids were apoplectic. It was fun, and nobody was scared or hurt or felt foolish.
This week, on April 1st, I simply wrote on our morning message: Happy May!
I’m not sure what I expected to happen, but my wildest dreams were surpassed. At first they tried to gently correct me: “Mrs. Loeffler, don’t you mean ‘Happy April?’”
No, said I.
They tried again: “But Mrs Loeffler, its April first today!”
I don’t think so, said I.
They tried to use me against myself: “Yesterday you said it was the last day of March.”
Yep, and now it’s May! said I.
“But you have 4/1/2025 written on the board!”
Yes, May is the 4th month!”
“But my iPad says it is April 1, 2025!”
Oh yes, Mr. Box said Apple is having issues this morning.
And so it went. My poor students were so frustrated with me, and I let them off the hook shortly after the 2nd bell rang. But oh, it was entertaining. Harmlessly so.
The next day, as we were in the midst of Minnesota’s annual April Fool’s joke my morning message said, It certainly isn’t May!
Thanks for reading.
Love, Susie
I love your joke. April Fools is my least favorite “holiday”. Celeste did Oreos filled with toothpaste. I also love the underground teacher dress ip days. There’s a fake spider plant at my work and for a few weeks I would add 2-3 fake pink flowers (each day!) to it, in hopes that someone would ask about the “blooming” spider plant but no one said anything and I just outed myself eventually.
I tell people if they try to scare me they better be ready to get punched. Fight or flight reflex. Can't help it.
I'm all in in clever jokes like April is May though!