Thank goodness.  I would hate to think that one of our annual April the 1st glitches actually stuck!  I love April Fools Day!  I got the three co-workers today.  I got the boss although she promised that I would  need to find another place of employment if I had.

Because I had to work this morning, I recorded The Price is Right.  Not something I usually do but since inheriting the microphone, Drew has had brilliant shows on April first and today was no exception.  Last year, “Mimi” served as a model on the show.  This year, she was the new “Executive Producer” and promised to keep an eye on the host to see if he made any mistakes.  She was very helpful in particular with his trouble with names.

A few of the games were hysterical:  In Plinko Pat had to determine the correct number for a Snuggie (sorry, not $50+), a Club (one of those anti-auto-theft devices), a chia pet, and (what else) THE CLAPPER!  She only missed on the snuggie and ended up winning $11,000.

Pick-a-Pair saw Pat needing to pick the two grocery items that were priced exactly the same.  Halloween ready to bake cookies, Christmas Ziploc containers, St. Pat’s Day garland, Valentine conversation hearts, New Years party poppers, and Count Chocula.

And finally, the showcase saw Pat and Pat going for two fabulous showcases. And not to spoil the surprise, but…. PAT WON!  Of course, they both could have gone over.

Did you know that residents of the Midwest and the Great Lakes region are to expect one last hurrah from Old Man Winter with two feet of snow expected?

APRIL FOOL’S!!!  Have a good one – And BE NICE!!!

As many of you may have found out the hard way, today is April Fool’s Day.  Thankfully, I was the victim of only two pranks, and one I kind of figured out…  But the other one came out of left field and went something like this: my 9-year-old daughter comes up to me and says, “Mom, Christopher (her 8-month-old brother) is bleeding!”  She said it nonchalantly, but come on, something like that would just strike an instinctual panic button in any parent!  So I dropped what I was doing and ran into the living room, and she let me off the hook – April Fool’s!

Obviously this type of prank is not cool, and my daughter and I had a little chat about the inappropriateness of jokes involving injury  (I did tell her it was a good one though, since she didn’t know anything about prank etiquette when she thought of it).

But for future reference, I don’t make a very good prank victim anyway.  I tend to be gullible in the first place, so I’m easy to get.  And when I’m not being gullible, I’m cynical, so I might be paranoid I’m getting “got” or at least lied to.  And most importantly, if you do get me, depending on the severity of the prank, I might get mad at you – I guess I don’t like to be fooled…   So consider this your warning, and catch me on April Fool’s Day next year – at your own risk!

Ok… I’m not sure, but when I attempted to access my tangents site the normal way, I came across a message that stated that the domain name tangents.org is for sale.  After some trial and error, I was able to make my way here to post on the weirdness of the day.

It started this morning when I watched the April Fools Day episode of The Price is Right featuring a very special surprise guest and gags galore.

While walking to work at 11:55AM, I noticed that the clock at the bank read 12:55PM… funny.

While at work, the manager called and asked me if I would come in an hour early tomorrow as the truck was going to be early.  Why would I come in an hour early on Wednesday I said.?  She actually took me seriously and thought that it really was Tuesday instead of Wednesday.  HAHA!

Later, an apparent wrong number called and asked to speak with Monica.  I replied that I am  Monica and we carried on a two minute conversation until I could not come up with any more believable conversation.  Thank goodness the caller was good hearted and played along.

That was all until I got home and found out that our domain was for sale.  I guess we will see what happens tomorrow.  I can post, but can my readers find my posts?

And now for some youtube fun:

VIDEO 1: Bloody Tennis Tantrum

WHO: Mikhail Youzhny, a professional tennis player
WHAT: Tennis racket vs. forehead
WHEN: Monday, March 31, 2008
WHERE: Sony Ericsson Open – Key Biscayne, FL
WHY: ?????
COMMENTS: If you are bored by tennis, the real fun starts about 30 seconds into the video.  Make sure you listen to the announcers’ commentary on the incident – hilarious!

VIDEO 2: Drunk Hamster

WHO: Someone’s poor (?) hamster
WHAT: repeatedly doing flips
WHEN: Not important
WHERE: The Hamster’s cage
WHY: Is he really drunk?
COMMENTS: I don’t condone cruelty to animals, of course, but this is so funny…  And he seems to be doing it because he really LIKES doing it.  He doesn’t seem to be getting hurt.  The theme song works well with the action.

Video 3: The Price is Right April Fool’s Day Joke

WHO: Drew Carey and Rich Fields vs. a contestant named Lisa
WHAT: A contestant bids on a fake showcase
WHEN: April Fool’s Day 2008
WHERE: Los Angeles, CA
WHY: April Fool’s Day prank
COMMENTS: I can’t believe the contestant didn’t get the joke earlier…  guess she was distracted by being on tv, that happens.  Wish I could hear what the audience was saying during the prank!  Were they giving her bids, telling her it was a joke, what?

Yet another April Fool’s Day surprise awaited us when we got home tonight…  seems the newest addition to the family is a little jokester.  Our dog Beesley, who we’ve had for almost a month now, is an escape artist.  We have a little mud room in the back of the house that leads to the garage, and if we don’t lock the dogs out of it, Beesley can push open the door leading to the garage and escape.  Apparently, tonight was one of those nights when we forgot to make sure the dogs were locked out of the mud room because when we got home and opened the garage to pull the car in, out runs Beesley.  We corralled her into the car, and that’s when we saw it – a HUGE mountain of garbage in the middle of the garage, along with several smaller hills of doggie-doo.  Seems during her great escape into the garage, she decided to tear apart the garbage that was in there waiting for garbage day.  Of course, being a family of 5, we have lots of garbage, including lots of dirty diapers.  Seems little Beesley had herself such a feast that she immediately had to add doggie-doo to the mess without waiting for us to come home and let her outside to do her business.  Compounding our luck had this happening on a Tuesday, which is only 2 days before garbage day, so we had just about as much garbage out there as was possible.  I’ve been trying to convince Hubby that we need to buy one of those mega garbage cans just to store our garbage in until garbage day ever since the local squirrels discovered we have a parrot who discards nuts into our garbage.  They sneak into the garage constantly and tear little holes in the garbage bags to get at the nuts.  But at least they’re dainty about it, which is more than I can say for Beesley.  It’s just difficult to justify spending money on something that you’re going to put garbage into – it’s like literally throwing money away…  or the reverse actually, but still…  maybe now we’ll be able to justify that expense a little better.  April Fool’s – Beesley style – YUCK!

And a side note about April Fool’s Day from our local paper.  No one knows how April Fool’s Day came about.  There’s a theory that it originated when the Gregorian Calender was adopted in the 1500’s.  Seems there were a few folks stubborn about adopting the change of New Year’s Day from April 1 to January 1, so others made fun of them, pranked them, and sent them on fool’s errands, hence the origin of April Fool’s Day.  That is just a theory however, but equally amusing and NOT just a theory is how the country of Scotland celebrates April 1st.  Apparently Scottish April Fool’s Day jokes often focus on the buttocks and the day is known as Taily Day.  According to our local paper, the “butts” of the Taily Day jokes are known as April “Gowk” which is another name for Cuckoo bird, and it’s believed the ole “kick me” sign gag originated with these Scottish customs.  I think I’ll stick with good old April Fool’s Day, thanks, though this year in our house, I guess you could call it Taily Day!

Another April Fool’s Day is upon us unfortunately.  I usually escape the day unscathed, but this year, that is not the case.  Seems some clever “hacker” decided to “get” us tangents.org bloggers with false threats of blog erasures…

I did not think it was funny.  Maybe I’m not a good sport, but the joke hit where it hurt – how many valuable documents; including pictures, diaries, even my oldest daughter’s electronic baby book, have I lost due to computer malfunctions?  I’m not saying my blogs are valuable, but I have spent lots of time on them.  They’ve also essentially replaced my family diary I was keeping since I now put most of my kids milestones in my blogs…

But I guess most people get a kick out of the day.  Drew Carey even got into the spirit today on The Price is Right.  They put in a joke showcase and were going to make some poor lady bid on a trip to Lebanon or someplace!  I was half-watching, wish I had seen the whole thing, it seemed hilarious.  But anyway, I hope others are better sports than I, and they find the blog prank funny.  And I’m sorry to the gleeful jokester who really wanted to have some fun at my expense before I spoiled it.  Maybe I’m just a spoiled sport because I can’t think of any good pranks myself.  But now that I know the playing field is wide open and I have a whole year to think about it, stay away from me this year and WATCH OUT for me next year 😉