Bertram's Blog

I’ve never been a fan of practical jokes. Not the crude ones like whoopie cushions. Not the mean ones like switching sugar and salt. Not the cruel ones like sending someone a fake love letter purporting to be from a person they’ve admired from afar. Not the disastrous ones like telling someone you were dying. And especially not the elaborate ones where the poor pranked person hadn’t a clue.

There was once a television show where the hosts played practical jokes on people. In one episode, a well-known actor had been wined and dined extensively by industry bigwigs as a prelude to his getting some important acting job. He played it cool, not getting excited, just accepting the scenario as possible since there was nothing out of the ordinary about the situation. At the end, when they told him it was all a joke, for a moment there was a blank look on his face, not embarrassment — just blank. As if the whole thing had been totally pointless, which such pranks are.

When I was growing up, we didn’t have a television because my father didn’t want us to be like everyone else, nor would he let us listen to the popular radio stations. Since I was naïve and out of the mainstream, kids often picked on me. One day, I got to school and found chalk hearts all over the playground with PB + EP inside. I couldn’t figure out what EP stood for since there was no one in the school with those initials, and no one would tell me what they meant. They laughed, thinking the whole thing hilarious. I don’t know how many days they strung out the joke until someone finally told me EP stood for Elvis Presley. I just stared at them, totally at a loss since I’d never heard of him. (Yep, I was that culturally isolated.) I still don’t understand the point of that incident; it just seems so utterly bizarre.

Today is April Fools’ Day, though in my world, it’s not something I ever bother to “celebrate” except in the way I celebrate anything — by learning about it.

Our April Fools’ Day probably came from a combination of two different historical events. The Romans held a Hilaria Festival on March 25, celebrating with masks, jokes, games, parades, the first day of the year where daylight was longer than the dark. Also, until 1582, people used a Julian Calendar, where the first day of the year was April 1. When they switched to the Gregorian Calendar, some people didn’t know that the first day of the year had been changed to January 1 and so continued to celebrate on April 1. They were considered fools, fair game for the pranks more enlightened folk played on them. Yeah, fun.

The only time I have ever been a “good sport” about a practical joke is when someone said something outrageous, then immediately admitted they were just joking. Anything longer is just . . . well, it’s just cruel. For the rest, being a good sport seems to mean that anyone can do anything to you and you’re supposed to take it with a smile, and that’s something I can’t do since it gives tacit approval to unkindness. Luckily, I’m old enough not to care what sort of sport people think I am and so can stop pretending that meanness is fun.

So, whatever the general meaning of this day, to me it only means staying inside by myself until the pointless foolery is done.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.