Being Fooled - Shonna Anderson

Each April’s Fool’s Day I think fondly back to April 1st, 2001. It was my senior year in college and April Fool’s Day happened to fall on the Sunday that everyone was due back to campus after the Spring Break holiday. Before leaving for Spring Break, my roommate Alisa and I had spent an entire night discussing ways to pull a prank on our unsuspecting roommates. We decided that we would “do up” each of our roommates rooms in a theme during the day on Sunday so they could greet them each when they arrived home from Spring Break on Sunday evening. We awoke early on the morning of April 1st and sped over to the local K-mart to buy supplies. As we checked out we couldn’t suppress our giggles as the cashier looked at the items on the conveyor belt suspiciously. Econo-box of condoms ? Check. 12 hotdogs? Check. Fishing wire? Check. Large box of super plus tampons? Check. Size XXXXXL women’s granny panties? Check. 10 copies of that month’s issue of Playgirl? Check. With all of our supplies in hand we went back to our apartment to get to work.

Our first task was to blow up as many of the condoms that we could in 20 minutes and then hang them up in one room. Along the walls we added more that were not blown up and some that were still in packages. We dubbed the room the “Condom Conservatory”, took a picture of our handiwork, taped it to the door and shut the door behind us.

Next up was our roommate Emily’s room. Here we took use of the box of tampons and strung them all over her room. And for effect we changed out the normal light bulb for a red one. This one we dubbed the “Tampon Tearoom”, took another picture and closed the door.

By this time we were pretty tired, but our two largest endeavors were still to come. We knew our roommate Dawn had quite an underwear collection, so we proceeded to pull out every last one and strung them about her room on fishing wire. There was barely a foot to move in. We then rigged the largest pair of underwear we could find (Alisa and I were able to fit both of us in them) so that they would fall into the face of whoever opened the door. The “Panty Patio” was complete.

Last, but not least, was our crowning glory. Our roommate Leslie was paranoid and always locked her door if she was going to be gone more than a couple hours. With the help of an accomplice from next door we jimmied the lock and made it inside. Leslie was also notorious for loving to eat red meat, so we decided to decorate her room with meat of a different kind. We wallpapered her wall with the naked men from the 15 issues of Playgirl and proceed to string the hotdogs throughout her room. The “Phallic Foyer” and our April’s Fools prank was complete.

Now all we had to do was wait and wait and wait for each of our roommates to get home.