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.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Being Fooled - Judy Albietz
Lily was still asleep when Sam heard the growling noise in the distance. He went outside the cave house to look around. In the early morning light he saw what looked like a large dog standing still up on the hill behind the cave. Sam immediately felt something was wrong. The dog’s head and shoulders were twice the size of its body. Its large fangs hung outside its mouth, almost dragging on the ground. All its teeth were stained with what looked like old crusted blood. Its gray grizzled hair was matted and dirty. Worse, it had the face of Mort, a dog who lived and died a couple hundred years ago. Sam, as the only time-traveling dog on the island, was the only dog from that time who still survived. Even though Sam knew that Mort was long gone, it still shook him that the dog facing him looked like Mort, at least a little. However, Sam remembered Mort had a small narrow head and his medium-sized body was slender and wolf-like. This monster dog was all out of proportion. Sam wondered where it had come from. It couldn’t be real.
The monster dog still hadn’t moved when it began to glow with an unnatural bright stoplight red. After a few seconds, its body changed, oscillating between a solid shape and a two-dimensional one. Then the monster shook its filthy coat and became undeniably solid and started moving towards the cave house in attack mode. Now Sam knew he had to take it seriously.
The monster dog still hadn’t moved when it began to glow with an unnatural bright stoplight red. After a few seconds, its body changed, oscillating between a solid shape and a two-dimensional one. Then the monster shook its filthy coat and became undeniably solid and started moving towards the cave house in attack mode. Now Sam knew he had to take it seriously.
Traveling - Rebecca Link
On October 29th, 2000 we returned to Perm Russia to adopt our two baby girls. It was prettier than before because the dirt was covered with a blanket of snow. Having the same family to stay with and the same driver gave us a sense of security. We knew what to expect. It was hard to sleep that night knowing in the morning I would finally see and hold Alonya. She was at a different orphanage than Olga, who we had visited in Perm in July. Alonya’s orphanage was in the village of Kungor, about two hours east of Perm, Russia. Natasha, our interpreter, could not be there so she sent her brother, Pavol, with our driver to interpret. Pavol was a high school English teacher in Perm.
The roads to Kungor were covered with snow and it was hard to tell where the lanes were. It looked like miles and miles of nothingness. At one of the crossroads a police car stopped us. Two police officers dressed in what looked like army clothes, carrying machine guns approached our car. Our driver and Pavol were in the front seats while my husband and I were in the back seat. Pavol asked us to get out our passports and hand them to him. Our driver got out of the car to speak with the officers. Pavol turned around in his seat and said,” Say nothing.” I grabbed my husband’s hand. They spoke outside the car for several minutes. Our driver reached inside for our passports and handed them to the officers. They looked inside the window at us with a stare and checked our passports. Everything must have been in order because they returned the passports and waved us on.
We finally reached the village of Kungor. Most of the buildings were wooden; some brightly painted but most were falling apart. As we approached the orphanage it looked like a dark brick institution. There was an older woman outside with a dark blue scarf tied around her head. It was still snowing and the sidewalks were covered. She was sweeping the sidewalks with a large stick that had small branches tied to the bottom to make a broom. She was only wearing sandals with layers and layers of socks on her feet. She smiled at us.
The orphanage smelled like Pine-Sol. It was drafty and cold. Going from room to room you needed to step up or down; nothing was level. I saw glass baby bottles lined up on a counter with twine to attach what looked like a nipple. We entered a large room that had several large cribs with babies playing in them. Across the room was Alonya on top of a dressing table. She was being dressed, being dressed to meet us. Alonya’s eyes looked across the room to look at my husband and me. There were those blue eyes that I stared at in pictures for months, those precious blue eyes that I had waited to see, those beautiful blue eyes that I was told I couldn’t have. When she was handed to me I felt like I was holding a fragile piece of china. She was so innocent and delicate. I wanted to take her with me now!
The roads to Kungor were covered with snow and it was hard to tell where the lanes were. It looked like miles and miles of nothingness. At one of the crossroads a police car stopped us. Two police officers dressed in what looked like army clothes, carrying machine guns approached our car. Our driver and Pavol were in the front seats while my husband and I were in the back seat. Pavol asked us to get out our passports and hand them to him. Our driver got out of the car to speak with the officers. Pavol turned around in his seat and said,” Say nothing.” I grabbed my husband’s hand. They spoke outside the car for several minutes. Our driver reached inside for our passports and handed them to the officers. They looked inside the window at us with a stare and checked our passports. Everything must have been in order because they returned the passports and waved us on.
We finally reached the village of Kungor. Most of the buildings were wooden; some brightly painted but most were falling apart. As we approached the orphanage it looked like a dark brick institution. There was an older woman outside with a dark blue scarf tied around her head. It was still snowing and the sidewalks were covered. She was sweeping the sidewalks with a large stick that had small branches tied to the bottom to make a broom. She was only wearing sandals with layers and layers of socks on her feet. She smiled at us.
The orphanage smelled like Pine-Sol. It was drafty and cold. Going from room to room you needed to step up or down; nothing was level. I saw glass baby bottles lined up on a counter with twine to attach what looked like a nipple. We entered a large room that had several large cribs with babies playing in them. Across the room was Alonya on top of a dressing table. She was being dressed, being dressed to meet us. Alonya’s eyes looked across the room to look at my husband and me. There were those blue eyes that I stared at in pictures for months, those precious blue eyes that I had waited to see, those beautiful blue eyes that I was told I couldn’t have. When she was handed to me I felt like I was holding a fragile piece of china. She was so innocent and delicate. I wanted to take her with me now!
Living Proof - Corii Liau
It’s not unusual in Eden for camps of diametrically opposed positions to claim a single example as living proof of their most cherished beliefs. Like an abrupt and strange pulling back of the carpet, I saw this occur every now and then, in that environment of cheerful communities, willful ignorance. I could not pinpoint when these little outbursts between neighbors would occur, but when they did, I would eavesdrop hungrily, like a raven close to fresh highway kill.
It was the night that the elephants came through Eden. It wasn’t a circus, and it wasn’t a show. It was just curious, really. A band of thin brown men dressed in loose-fitting crinkly cotton tunics, and shoes with curled leather toes, and dreaded red, blonde, and brown hair piled high like snakes on top of their heads, led a troop of elephants, four in all, down the main street of town. They appeared at the north end of the street, silent. The men leading the elephants made no sound really, only an occasional “hup” or “tsch!” or some other brief commands or encouragement. The elephants themselves made no sound except for the formidable puff and hush of each enormous foot planting squarely in the dust of the street. I could have sworn that it was this ineffable sound that drew me out of the bar in the first place. The night was warm, and so several of the patrons from the bar were out there before me, and everyone pointing with awe, some of the children who had accompanied their parents on a night out were shouting and jumping with delight.
The smell of the elephants enveloped us as they trooped by, strong and wild and more rank than any stable that needed to be mucked out.
“Living proof of God’s will,” Mr. Palo said to his small daughter, whose eyes were wide as dollar coins, her hand gripping her father’s sweaty and red with excitement.
Ava Surra, who stood between me and Mr. Palo, snorted.
Mr. Palo looked at Miss Surra quizzically. “Something wrong?”
Ava screwed up her mouth, and tilted her head at the passing elephants. There were four elephants, ranging from the largest to the smallest, each one in back holding on to the one in front with entwined thick-trunk-to-thin-tail. “I would say that nature had more of a hand in that long nose and huge ears than God.”
It was Mr. Palo’s turn to snort. “Oh right, Ms. Smarty Pants here believes that we’re all descended from monkeys.” His eyes started to bulge a little from the challenge.
Ms. Surra straightened and drank her drink. “And why not? Even by your own fairytales, God should love all creatures great and small, so even if he had created the elephant out of whole cloth, or monkeys to be the start of us all, why wouldn’t that be a story you could tell your daughter?”
I raised my eyebrows and drained the last of my drink. I tapped Ms. Surra on the shoulder.
“Excuse me, I know we haven’t met,” I said. She whirled and looked at me hotly.
“No, we haven’t.”
“Would you like a drink?” I asked, gesturing towards the bar.
I saw Mr. Palo over her shoulder, shaking his head and lifting his daughter up on his shoulders. The elephants and their handlers made their steady way down and disappeared into the gloom past the streetlights, southwards into the night.
It was the night that the elephants came through Eden. It wasn’t a circus, and it wasn’t a show. It was just curious, really. A band of thin brown men dressed in loose-fitting crinkly cotton tunics, and shoes with curled leather toes, and dreaded red, blonde, and brown hair piled high like snakes on top of their heads, led a troop of elephants, four in all, down the main street of town. They appeared at the north end of the street, silent. The men leading the elephants made no sound really, only an occasional “hup” or “tsch!” or some other brief commands or encouragement. The elephants themselves made no sound except for the formidable puff and hush of each enormous foot planting squarely in the dust of the street. I could have sworn that it was this ineffable sound that drew me out of the bar in the first place. The night was warm, and so several of the patrons from the bar were out there before me, and everyone pointing with awe, some of the children who had accompanied their parents on a night out were shouting and jumping with delight.
The smell of the elephants enveloped us as they trooped by, strong and wild and more rank than any stable that needed to be mucked out.
“Living proof of God’s will,” Mr. Palo said to his small daughter, whose eyes were wide as dollar coins, her hand gripping her father’s sweaty and red with excitement.
Ava Surra, who stood between me and Mr. Palo, snorted.
Mr. Palo looked at Miss Surra quizzically. “Something wrong?”
Ava screwed up her mouth, and tilted her head at the passing elephants. There were four elephants, ranging from the largest to the smallest, each one in back holding on to the one in front with entwined thick-trunk-to-thin-tail. “I would say that nature had more of a hand in that long nose and huge ears than God.”
It was Mr. Palo’s turn to snort. “Oh right, Ms. Smarty Pants here believes that we’re all descended from monkeys.” His eyes started to bulge a little from the challenge.
Ms. Surra straightened and drank her drink. “And why not? Even by your own fairytales, God should love all creatures great and small, so even if he had created the elephant out of whole cloth, or monkeys to be the start of us all, why wouldn’t that be a story you could tell your daughter?”
I raised my eyebrows and drained the last of my drink. I tapped Ms. Surra on the shoulder.
“Excuse me, I know we haven’t met,” I said. She whirled and looked at me hotly.
“No, we haven’t.”
“Would you like a drink?” I asked, gesturing towards the bar.
I saw Mr. Palo over her shoulder, shaking his head and lifting his daughter up on his shoulders. The elephants and their handlers made their steady way down and disappeared into the gloom past the streetlights, southwards into the night.
Living Proof - Nancy Cech
Dogs are living proof of unconditional love. I’m not sure I’d even believe in the concept if I didn’t know this by first hand experience. I live with three dogs and know quite well that all they really care about is what is happening right now. Right now in this exact moment. And every moment is so much better when you have something to good to eat in your hand. Like a slice of cheese. You like cheese don’t you? I know I do. I’d like you even more if you shared your cheese. Yes dogs know how to keep things simple. And they are so eternally grateful for every happy moment. The exuberant thanks I get for just wetting down 3 bowls of kibble is amazing. I can pour through recipe books, dice and julienne my heart out for my son and barely get a grunt in appreciation. But put on the kettle to boil water for dry dog food, you’d think I was Julia Child. And they never complain about my driving or the routes I take to get us where we are going. In fact they think it’s amazing that I know my way to all the best dog parks. And they love the fact I can roll down windows and that our moving doghouse can stop for bone treats on the way home. (Although I do wonder if they think the dog park is where I go all day when I leave them at home. I mean I tell them I’m going to work, but do they think I’m at the beach all day?) They’ll watch anything you want to watch on TV without a complaint, they never leave the seat up in the bathroom. And except for a little extra hair in the bed and an unexcused fart or two, well they make for perfect sleeping partners because they never hog the covers. Yep dogs are living proof there is unconditional love and that there is heaven on earth.
Living Proof - Judy Radin
Whenever she gets sick she’s always certain she will never feel well again. She’s as convinced of this as she is ever convinced about anything. Evil forces take hold of her body and that’s the end of it – and her. The focus of her life changes; she goes back to being a full-time patient. She goes back to a life filled with doctor’s appointments, tests, and treatments and she believes she will stay that way forever. She’s recovered from bouts of illness so many different times, over so many years and decades, yet she continues to worry that the next time her luck will run out. Next time it really will sideline her forever. The older she gets the harder it is to take these physical and mental hits in stride. But then, suddenly, she feels well again. Something inside tells her she’s safe. The clouds lift. The colors of the sky and the trees and the flowers become vivid again. Lupus has left the building. Her puffy hands deflate. Her achy joints relax. The demon is fast asleep, back down the rabbit hole, content once again to leave her in peace. That’s when she starts to rejoice – and breathe.
Living Proof - Jennifer Baljko
Lynn carried the traveling DNA of her ancestors, well, at least she thought she had genes similar to her grandfather. Scrapping her pink suitcase along the sidewalk, Lynn thought her grandfather would be the only one who would completely understand why she had to go. He was living proof that fabulous adventures happened to ordinary people. Lynn remembered a couple of stories he had told her on her last birthday. He had been to Paris and Belgium. That’s where he had learned to make those meringue bird-shaped things Lynn liked so much. Lynn wasn’t exactly sure where those places were. They seemed to be really far from Jersey City. He had shown her where they on the globe. He told her about the boat to America he had taken with grandma, dad and dad’s brother and sisters many years before. Lynn figured if she could find the boat, she could to Paris, too. Maybe she could make those bird things too.
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