A Little Foolishness can't Hurt

April Fools! There, I said it. Now you can relax and not worry about me playing any stupid April Fool jokes. You ever wonder how April Fool's Day came about? So do many others. There seems to be much dispute about it's origin. In fact, there are a number of explanations for it, the most popular one being that it started when the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1582 that moved New Year's Day from April 1st to January 1st. In France, those who did not know about the change (communication was much slower in those days) and still celebrated the new year on April 1st were derided as being "fools". Personally, I think the French look foolish most of the time, calendars aside.

Many other theories about how April Fool jokes became a universal passion are just as convincing as that one. I think it maters not as to origination. In fact, something like an April Fool joke day must be an inevitability. Humans need to laugh. They also need to laugh at others. April Fool's pranks, those harmless and fun stunts are a good way for people to release tension. The great theologian, Martin Luther, once wrote that "If you are not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don't want to go." I agree with Luther (though I doubt any heaven would let me in anyway).

Laughing is probably what keeps us from weeping, so how could any reasonable person object to a reasonable Aril Fool prank. Throwing someone's cell phone it a garbage dumpsite is not reasonable. Hiding it for a few minutes is. I would suspect reasonable people play reasonable April Fool jokes and unreasonable ones do not.

A problem with April 1st is that many people don't take serious matters seriously. I don't want to have a heart attack or die on April 1st (though dying then might great timing because it would catch others off guard). Hmmm If on April 1st some babe or hunk you have dreamed about forever tells you he or she must have you and only you in bed what do you think...uh, ok, that obviously has to be an April Fool joke. It would never happen to me. But on April 1st there are borderline events that could be interpreted as funny that yet might be real ones.

This is the dilemma of April 1st. How should we react to events that seem a little unusual? We don't mind being the butt of April Fool jokes, but we also would feel stupid to be tricked by one or to think something said or done in seriousness is in fact a joke. Maybe the best strategy on April 1st is to just lock oneself inside the house and turn off all the electronic communications.

Uh...as you can see, I didn't take my own advice here. What a cruel joke to play on you.