What I Learned from My Very First April Fool’s Day Prank

I’ve never pulled an April Fool’s prank until today. Most years, I don’t even realize it’s April 1st until my students have erupted in uncontrollable laughter after freaking me out. Remember the story of me going all exorcist/stripper when the spider crawled across my face? I almost repeated that performance in my classroom when a student (in HORROR!) told me there was a spider on my shirt. No, I’ve always been the prankee, never the pranker.

Until today.

After seeing at least a half dozen fake pregnancy attempts from my Facebook friends, I decided to pull one of my own. I pulled up an old ultrasound of Amelia (one that I hadn’t previously published to Facebook). I doctored it so that it didn’t have a year and the month was “2” instead of “12.” Then I posted it to Facebook with the following message:

John and I decided to wait until April Fool's Day to post our "new picture" since everyone else posts FAKE pregnancy news. Been hard sitting on it for a month, but it worked out well since I didn't want to announce it to the world until I got to my 2nd trimester. Amelia will have a buddy to trick-or-treat with this year. We are currently accepting donations of diapers, formula, etc.

I let the grandparents in on the secret because I knew they would kill me, but I decided to see how many people would actually fall for it, especially this late in the day on April 1st.

Within a half hour, I had over two dozen comments, six likes, seven messages in my inbox and my phone wouldn’t stop beeping with text messages. As I soaked my bum shoulder/back in the tub, I couldn’t stop giggling at first. My first time out the gate and it had (mostly) worked. After I shut my phone off and grabbed a magazine, though, I started feeling guilty. All of these people who care about me are so excited and it’s all a big lie. The longer I soaked, the worse I felt. I started thinking about the people I know who want nothing more than to be pregnant, those who have struggled with infertility.  Finally, I got out of the tub, quickly dried off and headed to the computer.

Now I’m sitting here typing this after taking the post down. SURELY by now people have caught on. Then again, a lot of people don’t read others’ comments. So consider this blog to be an apology plus damage control.

So here’s a summary of what I learned from my very first (and possibly last) April Fool’s Day prank:

• I have a guilt complex like you wouldn’t believe. I couldn’t even enjoy the prank for long because I was so worried about someone’s feelings getting hurt (a family member not in on the gag) or someone being upset that I pranked them about something so serious. I worried I would hurt those who hope and pray daily that they can share this news (for real!!!) with family members and friends.  Though I don’t tend to care what anyone thinks about ME, I do worry a great deal about the feelings of others. This time it was to the point that I dragged myself with one arm out of a hot tub.
• People REALLY want me to have another baby. I didn’t realize my plans for procreation were so important to the masses. One message read: “I was so worried when you said you weren’t having any more children. I’m so glad you changed your mind. You won’t regret it.”
• I’m either a really good liar or my tendency to be open about pretty much everything has totally destroyed people’s BS radars. Maybe both. Or perhaps people just want to believe. Even after one commenter pointed out that just YESTERDAY I said I was on phentermine, someone else argued that maybe I was just trying to cover up my pregnancy. That was probably my favorite part of this whole thing. I didn’t even HAVE to try to cover my trail.  People did it for me.
• Some people pay more attention to grammar/punctuation than even I do. One message called shenanigans, pointing out that the label on the picture said “WOMANS” clinic and that it should be “WOMEN’S” or at least “WOMAN’S.” Actually, that’s the way it’s written on the ultrasound.
• Finally, I’ve learned I really don’t enjoy playing pranks on people. It’s hilarious when other people do it to each other, but I just feel guilty and sneaky. I can pretty much guarantee that I won’t try to pull anything like this again (at least not about something so life changing!), so I hope people don’t read my statuses from now on and think, “Whatever, you damned, dirty liar. “

So here it is now, an hour and a half later, and I’m already spilling the beans. Can’t figure out if I’m a really good prankster for pulling it off or the worst prankster ever for telling on myself so quickly.

My sincerest apologies to everyone, especially to anyone who was hurt by my totsensitivitysensitivity.  Trust me, I will pay for this little joke.  I assume half of Henderson knows now.

Oh well, at least I got a blog out of the whole thing.