By Kevin Ford
Student Reporter
Check your surroundings and listen extra closely to your friends, for Monday is April Fools’ Day. The single day of the year where you are not safe from any kind of tricks.
We all have that one friend that stays quiet and relatively relaxed, but once they become engaged they go all the way, if someone comes to mind, do not be surprised if they execute a hilarious prank on you Monday.
Justin Van Fleet, a senior psychology major at Northwestern, shared an April Fools’ story. “I know this couple who have lived together for a few years now,” Fleet said. Each April fools day, the male does a prank on his girlfriend, Fleet said. He waited until his girlfriend fell asleep the night before April 1.
His idea was to put saranwrap around the toilet seat in an attempt to catch his girlfriend off guard going to the bathroom in the morning.
Sure enough, his girlfriend did not become aware before she was urinating on herself. Using saranwrap is by far a good disguise, but when someone gets up to go to the bathroom in the morning most people are usually still half-asleep and not as aware, Fleet said.
Although April 1, is a nationally celebrated day, its origins remain a mystery.
April Fools’ day roams in pop culture, most notable in an episode of the Simpsons where Bart accidentally put his father in a coma.
It is said that people who were slow to celebrate the new year would usually continue to celebrate towards the last week in March through April 1, they became the butt of jokes and hoaxes.
There is also speculation that April Fools’ Day tied to the weather, or first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, when Mother Nature fooled people with unpredictable weather.
April Fools’ Day spread throughout Britain during the 18th century. In Scotland, the tradition became a two-day event, starting with “hunting the gowk,” in which people tricked others into going on phony errands. Gowk is a symbol for a fool.
Brendan Brown, a junior criminal justice major at Northwestern also shared an April Fools’ story.
“My old high school buddy and his girlfriend at the time went up to her mom with a fake pregnancy test which read positive on April Fools’,” Brown said. “He told me it did not take long before her mom went crazy so they hurried and told them it was just an April Fools’ joke”.
If you pull a joke like this on someone’s parents, you should expect a fierce reaction to say the least.
Now, just to remind everybody, Monday is April Fools’ day. Do not let Monday get the best of you. Remember, there is a 24-hour window for people to pull strings and execute pranks, keep an eye out.