April Fool's Day

when I was a kid my father used to play the worst pranks on us. We never did top him. My favorite and one my sister and I still laugh about was the time my dad turned our horses loose.

We lived on Mt. Spokane and owned 17 acres. Right next to our house was a 10 acre alfalfa field. Now this field was never really a problem until the alfalfa started to bloom and then the horses just had to have some... Usually they would find a way to break through the electric fence and they were on their way.

Well it was the end of March and the neighbors came to tell us that thier bee hives had been severely damaged by a black bear. It was about this time that we heard that another neighbor had shot a black bear that was trying to break into his house through a window. He was sure he hit it but didn't think he killed it. GREAT! a wounded blackbear roaming through the woods was not a nice thing to find!

So April Fool's Day rolls around and well we are all a little jumpy about the bear that may or may not even be around us! and the horse's get loose. Dad comes in and tells my sister and I to go get the horse's and he will go find where they got out and repair the fence.

So Shan and I take off (la te dah) and we are just walking along when all of a sudden in the bushes we hear this growling and see the bushes move. Both of us thought it was the end. I yelled at Shan and she yelled at me and we both did a 180 and ran for home. After a few feet, Shan tripped over a log and fell. My thought was "well at least the bear will stop for her." I later found out that her thought was if she laid still maybe the bear would go after me. (So much for sisterly love!)

Anyway, when I hit the road that was right by our house I suddenly hear this very deep voice laughing to high heaven. Dad was the bear and us girls were the bait!

My brother's great April Fool's Day joke was to call my great aunt who was over 80 years old and pretend to be an irate neighbor who was calling because Aunt Ella's chickens were in his yard. Would she please come get them? Aunt Ella didn't have chickens and what was worse was Aunt Ella did not recognize Dean's voice until he started giggling. Have a great April Fool's Day and here is some pranks you might enjoy reading about.

Clooney's Kind Gift to a Friend

One day driving around Los Angeles, George Clooney spotted in the trash a hideous painting of a naked woman. He took it home and started plotting his evil plan. George began telling his friends, including longtime pal Richard Kind ("Spin City" and "Mad About You"), that he had developed a newfound love of art, that he was taking painting classes, and that he thought he was quite gifted. George dragged Richard to galleries and craft shows to ensnare his victim deeper into his web. Then one day he showed up at Kind's home with, you guessed it, the dumpster art. He had signed the painting and said he was so proud of it he wanted to give it to his friend. A horrified Kind felt he had no choice but to display the art in his home. Clooney let it hang for a few weeks before confessing his prank.

This next one is a classic: Except I thought the nomination of Palin was the April Fools. The fact that she was on the recieving end of a prank only proves that we were the fools because we actually thought she was a legitimate candidate. I am still laughing at how we were fooled.... oh wait She really was a candidate and Ronald Reagan really was a president? Say it aint so Joe!

Sarah Palin Chats with French President Sarkozy

At the height on the 2008 Presidential campaign, Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was the subject of the best political practical jokes EVER. Palin enthusiastically took a call from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who proceeded to tell her in a very heavy accent that he'd like to hunt in a helicopter with her and that he could see Belgium from his house. A nervous Palin replied tentatively, saying we all need to live next door to different countries we need to work with and that if the two of them were to hunt and work at the same time they could kill two birds with one stone. In true Palin form, she flailed until the bitter end, when a Canadian comedian revealed he was pulling a prank. We were just relieved she never had the chance to tell the real Sarkozy, "I love you guys!"

Pranks on Whidbey Island.