April Fool's Past And Present
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” – Mark Twain
I once worked in an office where our manager loved to play practical jokes on us. He would frequently leave gooey, slimy fishing lures or fake bugs inside new loan files we had to underwrite. And we loved to get him back. My favorite was when one of my co-workers emptied his can of coke and filled it with tomato juice. It was priceless watching him try to choke it down without puking while simultaneously trying to curse her out. If I’m not mistaken, he actually spit it out. Of course, on April Fool’s Day, we had to get him. So, we all picked different times and reasons to call in sick and met at a local restaurant for breakfast. By the time we got to the office, he was frantically trying to just answer the phones. We snuck in, listened for a while, and then attempted to slink to our desks without him knowing, giggling the whole time. He heard us, put a caller on hold, and cursed us all out without even leaving his office. Good times.
Fast-forward a few years. At that point I was a department manager. I used to arrive earlier than my staff and by the time they came in I had a game plan for the day and had distributed the workload. Then it started. One after another started calling in sick. I don’t remember how many of them called in, but by the time the last person called I was so pissed off that I mumbled something to the effect of, “whatever” and hung up on her. Not only was a major chunk of my staff not coming in, but we were extremely busy, I would have to redistribute the workload and explain to my bosses why half my department was missing. At no point did it ever occur to me that it was April 1st, even though I had once participated in this exact same April Fool’s Day prank! I was so relieved when they all showed up that I couldn’t do anything but laugh about it.
This morning, hubby called on his way to work to inform me that he had a flat tire and I needed to bring him this ginormous hydraulic car jack that he keeps in the garage. Of course, I fell for it. I always do. 
Thanks for stopping by!
WOW! I left bloggyland for a few days & look at all I missed:) You’ve been a writing fool! That being said.. I really enjoyed this post. I’ve never been a big fan of April Fools Day. I tend to just have really shitty days on April 1st (and I truly mean REALly- not practical joke bad, just bad day bad.). BUT… I did enjoy the call in sick gag. I may steal that one next year, but– maybe I really won’t go in to work, LOL!