April Fools' Day

As April Fools' Day approaches, I am reminded of some of our past pranks and jokes.  Some have been great, others have been colossal failures but all have been in good clean fun.

When I was a kid, my mom pinned the legs and arms of our pajamas.  That same year, she and Dad headed to bed to find not only a short-sheeted bed set but one filled with leaves.  For me, at 12 or 13, it was hysterical.  For them, not so much.  Then there was the perpetual switching of the salt and sugar.  And one year, I took one of Mom's frozen Thin Mints and served it to her with salt sprinkled on the top.  I claimed it must have been frost since it had been in the freezer.

Rodney's favorite joke has been to tell me my tire is flat.  The first year of this joke, I was getting ready to head out for a part-time job I had at the time.  I went ballistic.  He's told me every year since then.  It came back to bite him one year though because he told me first thing in the morning that I had a flat and later that evening we went out to dinner and when we returned to the car, we really did have a flat tire.  Although he almost never dresses up, that night he was in khaki's changing the tire in the nearly dark parking lot.  We broke the jack that was in the trunk and had to scavenge one from a friend.  Surprisingly, the joke has continued to resurface year after year.

My personal favorite was a prank I didn't actually pull but seriously considered.  I figured it wouldn't be well received so I told Rodney about it instead.  In 2006, I planned on having a pregnant friend supply me with a "positive" pregnancy test.  I was going to present it to him all wrapped up while he was getting ready for work that morning.  Since I didn't give him a heart attack by actually playing the prank, the description got a reasonable chuckle.  The surprise was on us both when a test 5 days later revealed we were going to have our 3rd child.  He didn't think I was serious.

I've been exploring some practical joke websites looking for just the right pranks to pull this year.  I've come across some good ones and passed over many others that just wouldn't get a laugh in my house.  I'd love some suggestions of pranks pulled in the past that don't result in anyone getting wet, hurt, angry, or otherwise disrupting the "peace" in our house.