The only good April Fools joke ever is the one @JesusHoodstar did to me our sophomore year.
— John (@johnjf125) April 1, 2014
I was asked earlier today to explain this tweet. It would take a large number of tweets, so I decided to just post the story here.
But first of all, it is important that I give some information to properly set the stage for the story. @JesusHoodstar is a good friend of mine whose name is not actually Jesus Hoodstar--since he elects to not use his real name on Twitter, I will refer to him within this story as "Bobby".
(Side note: How genius would it be if his name actually were Bobby and I called this his alias because it is always assumed that an alias is a name other than one's own actual name? God, that's a good idea. But seriously though his name isn't actually Bobby but that is the name I will call him in this story)
So anyway, I met Bobby during the first week of my freshman year of college and have maintained regular contact with him ever since. And as a result of spending large quantities of time with each other during our first years of life independence, we are obnoxiously good at getting under one another's skin. Hell, we've known each other for almost seven years and his Twitter account is still mostly an elaborate joke to troll me.
Two years in a row, April Fools Day of 2009 and of 2010, Bobby played an April Fools joke on me. The aforementioned sophomore year prank, in 2009, makes for a far better story so I will save that tale for last. I'll start with 2010.
In Spring of 2010 (which, side note, was far and away the shittiest semester of my time in college, but that's another story for another day), Bobby and I lived together in a house. We had a third roommate who transferred in between the Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 semesters, which was unfortunate because he was far and away the responsible one of the three. Our house became a decrepit mess. For reference, here is an actual picture of my bedroom from the day I moved out of the house (the stuff on the bed was not there before, though most of it had been on my floor--this is a relatively accurate depiction of what gigantic idiots Bobby and I were as twenty-one year-olds in college.
Jesus Christ, I disgust me. But this is all tangential and pointless. Anyway, April Fools Day 2010 was on a Thursday. During that semester, I didn't have any classes on Tuesdays or Thursdays, which generally meant that I would sleep in as late as I damn well pleased and then matriculate to campus to do homework, to hang out with people, or just because I was bored. I woke up that day at around 10 a.m. (which was arguably a little bit early for me). Bobby had left long ago, having class at 9 a.m. Anyway, I opened my bedroom door and saw this.
Yep, that is pretty much what it looks like. It's 100+ plastic cups, filled about half-way with water. I don't know how long Bobby spent filling cups and I don't think Bobby considered the decent possibility that I wouldn't look down and would step on some of the cups, easily spilling water. But...I didn't step on the cups. I took a picture, knowing damn well that I would want one in order to most easily explain the situation to future audiences. And then I slowly started filling up cups with the contents of other cups in order to make a path to the bathroom (the door on the left of the above picture). Then, after quickly going to the bathroom (I don't know that Bobby considered that I'd probably really have to go upon waking up), I began grabbing cups and then pouring out the water in the bathroom sink. A logical end to an illogical prank.
I give Bobby full credit for his efforts. He bought the cups (we were just about the only college kids of legal drinking age who didn't have a huge stash of red Solo cups) and spent what I only assume was a long time filling up the cups with water and tiptoed around quietly enough that I never woke up and never suspected a thing when I opened the door. However, this prank works the same pretty much regardless of the receiving party. My intolerance for pouring out a bunch of water from plastic cups is really no higher or lower than anybody this side of the Wicked Witch of the West. But in 2009, Bobby came up with a brilliant prank which was perfectly tailored towards its target.
I took a nap after classes (I swear to God I spent occasional moments in college not sleeping) in the afternoon and when I woke up, I checked my e-mail. I had received one from the e-mail address used by dormitory's front desk which said that I had received a package. I thought it was a somewhat strange, since I wasn't expecting anything, but I headed downstairs to the desk. A girl I did not know was at the desk, inattentively sitting at a computer. I will call the girl Andrea because, I mean, it's plausible that her name was Andrea so why not. Certain details may be hazy to me at this point but I stayed as true to the actual events as I could (and if you like my ability to set a scene with dialogue, download my novel for free.
"Hey, I'm here to pick up a package."
"Sure," Andrea said. She then swiped my student ID to verify which packages were registered to me. She walked into a side room which held the mail, in addition to vacuum cleaners and board games and whatnot. She emerged holding a magazine and, not breaking stride, nonchalantly said, "Here you go."
A magazine? I didn't have any magazine subscriptions nor had I been anticipating that any magazines would arrive but...okay. Sure. I grabbed the magazine and took a step back towards my dorm room when I glanced at the magazine I had been handed. Penthouse.
Penthouse? Why the hell did I have Penthouse? Now, I've never purchased a copy of Penthouse in my life. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that I was born after 1980.
"Excuse me?" I said to Andrea. "Uh, this isn't mine. This must be some kind of mistake or...something. But this isn't mine."
Andrea looked at the magazine, seemingly noticing for the first time what kind of magazine I had received. She then looked back at me. She then dismissively asked, "Are you sure this isn't yours?"
Clearly, Andrea didn't believe me and assumed that I was just embarrassed about receiving a Penthouse. I'm not sure why she would think I would try to cover this fact by further drawing attention to the magazine itself, but that didn't really cross my mind at the time. Even though I knew the magazine wasn't mine, I was embarrassed about it. Talking to women was probably my worst life skill at age twenty (I'm not great at it now but by comparison, I am a master orator), and even though it was a stranger to whom I was speaking, the topic at hand freaked me out.
"How about," I asked, "How about I leave the magazine here and if it's somebody else's, they can come pick it up."
Andrea was still not buying it but she acquiesced. I went back to my dorm room, still somewhat mortified by the situation. I turned the light on, turned the TV on, and sat down at my desk. And then it hit me what had happened. I couldn't recall seeing an address label on the magazine, so how could the mail have been registered to me in the first place? Pretty simple answer, really. Bobby worked at the hall desk just an hour or two before.
When I next saw Bobby, I coyly mentioned what had happened. "You know, Bobby, I got a magazine at the hall desk today."
Bobby didn't even try to deny responsibility. Then again, he didn't accept responsibility either. He simply started to laugh his ass off. About a minute later, we moved on.
Bobby had won. April Fools Day pranks are rarely perfectly executed and perfectly designed. But for April Fools 2009, Bobby had pulled off the greatest April Fools Day prank of them all.
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