Ah, the fool’s errand. This classic prank has been around for hundreds of years. (See April Fools’ Day on page 12.) It’s simple to execute, and the variations are limitless. All you need is a sibling or friend gullible enough to ask for absurd—and nonexistent—products the next time you’re at the store. You can have him or her look for these one at a time. Or, you can give someone a list. Make sure to include real items on the list so they don’t get suspicious.
what you need
* A list of mostly real items with a few ridiculous, nonexistent ones
* non-sticky glue
* peeled grapes
* dissolving tea
* a knee-sharpener
* noncarbonated soda
* self-tying shoelaces
* dried raisins * -2% milk
* 8-inch marshmallows
* eyelash repair kit
* 3-D paint
* elbow grease
* bacon stretcher
* ice softener
* shoe silencer
what you do
THE SETUP
1 Invent a few weird but real-sounding items for your victim to ask for at a store.
Here are some examples to get you started:
PULL THE PRANK
1 Next time you’re in a store with a sibling or a friend, tell the person to ask a store employee for one of your ridiculous fake products or hand them a list with mostly real items and a few fake ones. Hang out nearby so you can enjoy the conversation.
April Fools’ Day
April 1 is the one day of the year when people are actually expected to pull pranks. Even the most boring, humorless grown-up will switch the salt and the sugar or move all the clocks ahead by an hour. Why April 1? No one knows for sure how the tradition got going. Some say it started in 1563 in France, when the government decided to switch to a new calendar and move the start of the year from Easter to January 1. The story goes that people living in the countryside didn’t hear about the switch and continued to celebrate New Year’s Day in early April. They were called April Fools and had tricks played on them. It’s a good story, but it’s probably not true.
More likely, April Fools’ Day grew out of an ancient tradition of celebrating the arrival of spring with silliness and hijinks. For centuries, people in India have flung brightly colored powders at each other during a spring festival called Holi. The ancient Romans used to let loose during a festival called Hilaria on March 25. Later, during the Middle Ages, people in Europe dressed in disguises and played tricks on each other during Festum Fatuorum (Festival of Fools).
Eighteenth-century pranksters carry on an ancient tradition.
Whatever its origins, April Fools’ Day caught hold in Europe and America, especially during the 1700s. That’s when the first KICK ME sign got stuck on some poor soul’s back. It’s also when a prank known as a “fool’s errand” got its start in England. A practical joker would send a child to the store for “pigeon’s milk” or “striped paint” or another nonexistent item. (See the April Fool’s Errand prank on page 10.) In more recent decades, people have pulled off some of the wildest pranks ever on April 1. In 1974 a man named Oliver “Porky” Bickar convinced residents of Sitka, Alaska, that a long-inactive volcano near their town had suddenly blown. Bickar had tossed hundreds of old tires into the cone of the dormant volcano and set them on fire. (Bickar warned the police ahead of time about the prank so no one got hurt. Still, this is a good example of a prank you should not try at home—or anywhere else.)
Many newspapers, radio stations, and websites love to fool their audiences on April 1. One of the funniest media hoaxes in modern history took place on April 1, 1957—long before The Onion and The Daily Show made fake news a part of daily life. A British TV news show reported that due to an unusually warm winter, the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland had started early. Spaghetti harvest? That’s right. The report showed a video of a farm family in Switzerland pulling pasta from trees. The narrator explained how the spaghetti weevil, an insect that had once destroyed the spaghetti harvest, had been defeated. In 1957 many people in Britain had never tasted pasta, so they didn’t question the report. Instead, hundreds of viewers jammed the phone lines of the TV station with serious questions about the harvest. Some wanted to know where they could get a spaghetti plant of their own!
A spaghetti picker hard at work.
