March 31, 2011 – Write From Karen

Happy April’s Fool Day!

I don’t really get into April Fools’ (especially now that the boys are older and usually catch on right away), but I found some funny pranks that I thought I would pass on to you in case you want to pull a fast one on a co-worker or a loved one.

Forgetful
Tape magnets to the bottom of an empty coffee cup, and attach it to the top of your car. Laugh at all the people who frantically try to get your attention as you drive by.

Wild Flowers
Buy some fake but realistic-looking flowers from a craft store and “plant” them in your victim’s garden. They will be shocked to find they have a greener thumb than they thought!

Invisible Ink
Go into the victim’s office and locate every pencil and pen in their desk. Paint the tips with clear nail polish. When they try to write, none of them will work. (After the prank is revealed, the nail polish can be removed by dipping the pens and pencils in polish remover.)

Kidnapped
Take an item from the victim’s office (something they use a lot such as a special coffee cup, stapler, pencil cup, etc.). Take a picture of the item and leave it on the victim’s desk (in the same spot where the item was located), along with a “ransom” note.

Clipped
Make some copies of a paperclip. Then put them into the paper tray of the copier. People will go nuts trying to find the paperclip stuck in the printer.

Filed Away
Take a tape recorder and fast forward a blank tape about half-way. Then record yourself saying “Hey, let me out of here!”, then knock on the tape recorder with your knuckles. Let the tape run a bit more and repeat as many times as you want. Now, rewind the tape, and hide it a file cabinet or other piece of furniture. Right before you know your victim will be in the area by themselves, sneak in a press “PLAY”.

Document Panic
Has your victim been working on an important document on their computer? Carefully hide the document in a safe place, then create a fake document with the same name. Fill the document with gobbledy-gook or a funny story. At the bottom put “April Fool’s!”

Incorrect
If the victim uses Microsoft Word, go into the victim’s computer and change the auto-correct feature so it misspells common words. Just open Word, choose “AutoCorrect Options” from the Tools menu, and have it replace common words like “the” and “and” with wacky words like “eggplant” or “Uranus.” Be creative.

Away From Home
Change the victim’s homepage to something unexpected. Open their browser and choose Tools->Options and enter the URL for a new page.

You can find many more “harmless” pranks at http://aprilfoolzone.com. Have fun!

P.S. I just noticed that, according to Grammar Girl, the correct spelling is:

http://twitter.com/#!/GrammarGirl/status/53486198152380417

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green…’

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.”

Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper’s sake.

President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper’s plight.

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government GreenCzar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug-related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.

MORAL OF THE STORY: DO NOT VOTE FOR LIBERALS/PROGRESSIVES EVER AGAIN.