Your shoelaces are undone. You look down. There are three scenarios: they really are undone, they are tied or you are probably wearing shoes without laces. April fools or as they say in France or Poisson d’Avril ( yes, you do remember your GCSE French correctly. It does translate to ‘Fish of April’). Admittedly, I am slightly early and it really was not a very good joke (it is a little difficult to give cold drink lovers ice cubes containing Mentos over a screen) but who could possibly wait for a whole morning where you can play pranks for the sake of tradition?
Who even came up with the notion of a day dedicated with playing prank on your fellow friends, neighbours and teachers? Apparently, such a day is very common in all around the world and there is no definite origin. The earliest record of April Fool’s day was in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury tales. One such origin story of Poisson d’Avril was that in the middle ages, New Years Day was most commonly celebrated on the 25th March in most European countries and celebrations typically ended on the 1st April. People who celebrates New Years on the 1st January made fun of those who celebrated it in March by playing pranks on them.
Fun fact: Poisson d’Avril may have derived its name from the tradition of sticking paper fish on people’s backs.
Obviously, looking up the origin of April Fool’s day would eventually lead to me looking up the bets April Fool’s Joke ever. After all, we must learn from the legends of harmless prank making. News outlets often run fake stories and companies will announce the launch of new, bizarre products. Safe to say, if it was April Fool’s day, and one, unsmiling newsreporter suddenly announced World War III or a new lethal disease spreading rampantly throughout the world, I would be terrified.
Imagine scrolling through yout Twitter or Instagram feed and reading that Expedia are offering flights to Mars from £99 pounds a month. Obviously, the thought it is April Fool’s day will fly over your head (pardon the pun). Or what about seeing that Alexa can now communicate with animals and even place orders. Imagine your surprise when all these doggy treats are delivered to your door. Google play even claimed to have created apps, games and training tools to keep your pet stimulated. Google even said they had created ‘Gmail motion which allows people to control their Gmail with movements’ Wow, maybe all those random emails to my Ex were not drunk mails. Maybe, it was just because I was stretching. Now, let’s talk about food: don’t you just hate it when you have a large packet of crisp and somebody plunges into the bag like a crane digging into the ground and take a tonne of crisp with them. Well, if ‘sharing is caring’ is not really your tune, why not buy a bag of Lays crisp with finger print sensors? If we go west, the National Research of Canada once shared a picture of the ongoing Zombie apocalypse. Listen up everybody, grab your baseball bat, flashlight and zombie proof car (apparently a Chevrolet Silverado Black Ops ticks the boxes).
Anyway, with April Fool’s day tomorrow, here are some harmless pranks which I found online (best not to try on heart patients!): 1. Leaving a pile of clothes on your roommate’s bathroom to looks as if it is a perosn lying unconscious on the ground face down 2. Replace Oreo Cream with toothpaste 3. Attach and airhorn to their seat 4. Replace Air Freshener with shrimp scent 5. Swap the sugar and salt (I do that often enough by accident already!)
