This is no joke. It’s April Fools’ Day. If you get any amount of satisfaction from fooling others, this day is for you. If you’re one of those gullible people that fall for most anything — well, maybe you should just stay in today.
On my calendar, this is actually two holidays — April Fools’ Day and Fun at Work Day. Again, no joke. This is International Fun at Work Day. I suppose work should always be fun, but for (probably) most people, it’s not. So today is your chance. Think of things and ways to make your job more fun and exciting. Of course remember that no matter how much fun you have today at work, you have to go to work tomorrow — so use your own judgement as to how much fun is too much….
But back to April Fools’ Day — like a lot of our holidays, no one really knows why we started, and continue, to celebrate a dastardly day like this. But there are a lot of theories.
Most of the explanations revolve around when Pope Gregory XIII (in 1582) adopted the Gregorian Calendar, effectively moving New Years’ Day from the end of March to the first of January. Even though the change was widely publicized, just like today, some people didn’t get the memo, and some just resisted the change and continued to celebrate the New Year at the end of March. Those that didn’t make the change were called “April Fools.” There are lots of other theories, but the fact that some April Fools’ Day origin stories are pranks in and of themselves just adds to the confusion.
April Fools’ Day is celebrated pretty much worldwide, but in most countries, it has its own “twist.”
The day is known as Poisson d’Avril in France, which means “April Fish” in English. Children tape a picture of a fish on the backs of a classmate and wait until they discover it. Taily Day (Scotland) is all about pranks involving people’s behinds and may have inspired the “Kick Me” sign.
In recent years, corporate america has gotten into the spirit of April Fools’ and and released fake ads and promoted fake products. One that I thought was particularly good was in 1996. Taco Bell took out a full page ad in a number major newspapers saying that the fast food chain had purchased the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. I think I read in the paper this morning that you can now get your tax refund in iTunes cards….
Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. Maybe today is the day you can come closer to fooling all the people all the time…. Everybody else has their day, so why not fools?
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