Usually I get really excited about April Fools’ Day, but a series of events kept me away from the fun today:
- I actually thought yesterday was April 1 for half of the day, making today feel anticlimactic.
- I honestly couldn’t think of a prank post to write last night, so I went to bed blogless.
- I woke up to a customer service issue that put a bit of damper on the day.
- My parents were in town this weekend and for the first half of today, which we spent reorganizing, improving, and cleaning my condo.
- I was just really busy for the rest of the day.
However, there was one clear bright spot to the day. I don’t know who did this, but if it was you, thank you. It really did make me smile throughout a relatively humorless day:
Someone (or several people) kept trying to add me to the Modern Cat e-newsletter.
Several times throughout the day, I got an e-mail notification asking me to confirm my subscription to Modern Cat (which, apparently, is both a magazine and an e-newsletter). Here’s what it looked like:
It’s a little thing, but it made my day. 🙂
What was your favorite prank of the day, whether it was a corporate prank you saw online or one you experienced firsthand?
Someone left a box of doughnuts in the breakroom. Open it up and BAM broccoli. The kicker was that they left half of an actual doughnut right next to the box.
Well done to that person! I like it! 🙂
Hey Jamey, Adding humor…. always important. While life has ups, downs and every color in between…humans have the ability to laugh and make jokes (I have no idea if primates have a sense of humor). Humor is fairly complex. Humor is classified as one of the “mature coping/defense mechanisms.” Humor is human. Two pieces I’ll leave for you…. if you’ve ever read Steve Martin’s collection of absurdist essays “Cruel Shoes” or “Pure Drivel” they’re quite good. Here is a link to one essay https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/06/09/times-roman-font-announces-shortage-of-periods/amp
Not laugh out loud, more subtle and clever ( the intro sentence by The NY Times I feel is unnecessary and takes the surprise away).
And my favorite April Fools prank is the classic BBC Spaghetti Harvest Shortage which caused a run on pasta throughout the U.K.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU
Hope you enjoy
-Baker
Ps: my daughter put sriracha sauce in my coffee this morning 👍
Baker: Well done to your daughter! 🙂
One of: https://twitter.com/canyoupetthedog answering the question for various cats, while referring to them as dogs, or Hal Labs characters Kirby and Qbby swapping shapes, so kirby was a cube (https://www.kirby.jp/squarekirby/) and qbby was a circle (https://twitter.com/Hakoboy_HAL/status/1112370524133310464).
Check out this NFL coaches prank from ESPN.com (text below):
Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay welcomed his friend Kliff Kingsbury to the NFL coaching ranks by trying to trick the Arizona Cardinals coach into thinking he would lose draft picks by tampering with Patrick Mahomes.
McVay shared the story of his prank on Kingsbury on The Adam Schefter Podcast, which was posted on Monday.
He said he pulled the prank at a dinner he attended with Kingsbury and Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback with whom Kingsbury has a personal relationship.
“We have a mutual friend that I put his name in my phone as [NFL commissioner] Roger Goodell. I had this friend send me a text saying, ‘I can’t believe you’re at dinner with Kingsbury and Mahomes. You know better than this. This is tampering. You’re both losing picks.’
“I showed Kliff the text, and he saw a ghost. I said, ‘You better call [Cardinals general manager] Steve Keim right away.’ He said, ‘I thought I was going to lose the No. 1 overall pick.’
“We couldn’t let it go on too long, but it was pretty good. We got him good.”
McVay said he talked to Kingsbury later about the prank and said the Cardinals coach told him, “That’s messed up. I’m getting you back, man.”
That’s awesome. 🙂 Very clever to change the name in his phone!
This is one of my greatest achievements because I got you! 😀 I’m still giggling about this. Modern Cat weekly for all!