It’s a day that many, myself included, dread — April Fool’s Day. We may all get older and outgrow a lot of things, but the sheer delight of pulling off a perfectly executed prank is not one of those things. I’ll be real, periodically I like to jump out from behind things to scare my jumpy roommate half to death because her reaction is always HILARIOUS (sorry, Kristen!), but some people (a lot of people) take April Fool’s Day a little too seriously. We all know that one person; they make it their mission to prank not just one friend, but as many people as possible. This day of the year always has me paranoid that I’ll be the girl that gets, like, a bucket of maple syrup and feathers poured on her in a public place in the name of comedy. To avoid this fate, I’ve thought long and hard about ways to successfully survive April Fool’s Day unscathed. I mean, no promises, but I tried. Good luck out there, friends.
1. Don’t eat ANYTHING offered to you.
This just makes sense. As a rule, you probably shouldn’t ever eat anything offered to you by a stranger, but even friends can be enemies in this realm come April 1st. Your own mother could offer you fresh baked cookies with secret ingredients of chili powder and onions. At work when you’re making your morning coffee, test out the sugar first to make sure it hasn’t been switched out for salt. Stick to making your own and buying prepackaged food today. It’s just safer.
2. Don’t sit down.
Obviously I don’t mean to never sit down the entire day, that’s just ludicrous. I’m talking more along the lines of before you do sit down anywhere, check for whoopee cushions, tacks or pointy things, glue or sticky substances, and anything like that. Also, don’t let someone pull out a chair for you because it could get pulled away entirely and then you’ll end up aggressively introducing your tailbone to the floor. Worst case scenario, you sit in a human chair, as in gif form above. Horrifying.
3. Don’t leave your laptop or phone unlocked.
Oh, weird how you’re suddenly getting like…a lot of notifications from Facebook. What are all of these people liking? Better chec-OH GOD. You left your laptop on the coffee table while you went to shower earlier and now there’s a status proclaiming with great detail that you’re currently doing something highly inappropriate. Oh awesome, and it’s been up for three hours so your mom, your little sister, and all your extended family saw it. Amazing. BEWARE.
4. Don’t forget to double check.
If you’ve got an event, someone makes plans with you today, or you get wind of some gossip or news, please do yourself a favor and Google it, confirm it, and/or research it ad nauseam before you do anything about it. Online rumors about celebrity deaths, world events, and the like in particular get pretty creative on April 1st, but it can also be really easy to forget what day it is and take a headline or word of mouth for what it is. Don’t do that. Even Santa checked his list twice after he made it.