Friday, April 2, 2010

A day late, but still funny

OK, so April Fool’s day was yesterday. That makes me a day late in sharing this story, but it’s funny all the same, so here it goes:
I’m not a very good prankster. This goes hand in hand with how I’m not a very good liar. Generally, when I try to prank someone, the look on my face gives me away and then I just start laughing.
My husband is a great prankster, though, and he’s always coming up with new ways to scare the living daylights out of me.
Well, one year, I had a good idea for April Fool’s day and I wasn’t about to screw it up.
It had been a miserable first few months to kick off the year. We had literally spent thousands of dollars fixing our dog after allergies and bad veterinarians got him all screwed up.
He was on a prescription diet and once a month, I had to stop by the specialist’s office to pick up a new bag.
A week before April 1, I made a special request.
“This is going to sound really strange, but is there any chance I can get a piece of your letterhead?” I asked sweetly. “I want to prank my husband for April Fool’s day. I swear, I won’t use it for anything else.”
Luckily, I must’ve been talking to someone with a good sense of humor. She laughed and handed a piece of their letterhead to me.
Cha-ching! I was so excited about my once-in-a-lifetime prank that I giggled the whole way back to my car.
I pulled out some of the bills we had from the office that numbered in the thousands of dollars and got to work, using words like “Histopathy” and “Biopsy” and then putting dollar figures next to them, coming up with a grand total of about $600. I set up the huge bill, added some late charges for good measure and made it look otherwise identical to previous bills we had from them.
We didn’t live together at the time, so one night while leaving his house, I dropped the bill in his mailbox — stamp and all — and had it mailed to my address.
When I picked up a day later in my own mailbox, it was postmarked and looked official. I was ready to go for April Fool’s day.
When the day arrived, it was up to me to sell the prank. I stormed into his place with the bill in hand.
“Can you believe this?” I yelled. “This place is trying to get more money out of us! This bill is huge — I don’t know how we’re going to pay for this!”
I threw the bill down in front of him and did my best to appear steaming mad while he opened it up and began examining the charges.
Once he began huffing and puffing and muttering, “What the hell?” I knew I had pulled it off.
And so, I let myself begin laughing and the proverbial cat was out of the bag.
It might’ve been short-lived, but it was my prank and years later, I’m still proud of it!

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