HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I have a darling sister, Nancy, who is even in the comments here sometimes. She is 10 years younger than I am, and completely adorable. She is a genius chef, and has a thriving and innovative catering company in Indianapolis. She gives dinner parties right out of Downton Abbey, or White Lotus, or, once, a hockey game. She is completely beautiful, and effortlessly bilingual in Spanish.
Here is one of the buffet tables she and her Great Cooks and Company created.
And here are some of the cupcakes she provided for a wedding. Yes! These are cupcakes.
A couple of days ago she texted me and said a friend of hers was in danger of losing her little daughter, and wanted to know if I thought she, Nancy, was too old to adopt a five-year-old.
YIKES. Oh my goodness, I thought, Nancy, you are way too nice for your own good.
She’s just the sort of person who would do that, ignoring all of her current impressive and immutable responsibilities and her future, to embrace a child in need and take her in. How do you tell someone not to do something like that? And it broke my heart that I, who have so many resources, would probably instantly refuse to do that.
So I wrote her a careful sweet note, praising her generosity and her kind spirit, and her impulsive big heart that would even consider doing such a thing, and then I proceeded to outline some of the practical difficulties (personal legal emotional educational and endlessly on) , that she would have to deal with if she adopted a five year old girl.
And again, I reiterated, how wonderful she is, and how I was proud to have her for a sister.
And she texted back:
APRIL FOOL.
I am such a dupe! She fools me every year. Every single year! She comes up with the most perfect and most believable of scenarios, and I fall for it every time. EVERY. TIME.
It happens every year, and every year I swear I will not be duped again. And every year I am.
Once my little brother even called me on the phone, on April Fools Day, and as we were talking he stopped and yelled: there’s a spider on you! And I shrieked!
Remember: This was on the phone. He could not see me.
I hate April Fools Day, and I am glad it’s over. Weigh in, you all, on April Fools things? Now that we have passed that hideous hurdle….
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Oh, Hank, that adoption story is diabolical! I can imagine my sister doing the same thing except it would be a 150 pound Great Pyrennes and I would be shrieking to myself, “You already have three special-needs dogs you can’t have another!!”
Fortunately, my family of origin was more into what I can only describe as goofy pranks. I had a weird Barbie with marker on her face and a bad haircut, and when I was in my teens, she started showing up unexpectedly. My mom (I assume) put her atop the shower head before I went in to wash up, and I retaliated by posing her swinging from the dining room chandelier. She showed up under covers, “planted” in Mom’s garden, and, memorably, inside a box of Frosted Flakes. It was genuinely so funny, for both the pranker and the prankee.
HANK: Yes, that’s the exact thing that’s annoying about AFD “jokes” –if they are funny on both sides, that’s great. If they are hurtful or embarrassing, I say no.
HALLIE EPHRON: I’m not a big jokes/pranks fan. The line between funny and mean can be very slender, and very much in the eye of the beholder.
Having said that, I shudder to remember how my sister Delia and I tormented our younger sister, telling her she was adopted.
JENN McKINLAY: When the hooligans were in residence, it was pranks galore (rubber ants in their lunch boxes, fake vomit on the floor, plastic wrap stretched across doorways, etc) but now that Hub and I are free birds (better term than empty nesters) there are no such pranks happening and I am 100% okay with that.
RHYS BOWEN: Julia’s weird Barbie is like our hideous Santa. Years ago my SIL’s mom gave them a Santa statue that she’d found at a garage sale Needless to say they hated it and contrived to give it back the next year. And so it had gone on ever since. This year I was asked, by Tom’s mom, to wrap and present the statue back to Tom. He was caught completely off guard and we have it on video!
The best April Fool was when I was at school and the home room class of a clueless teacher swapped with another class. Teacher called the roll and 30 different girls answered without her noticing anything was wrong!
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I come from a seriously non-pranking family! Maybe because both my parents grew up in really hard circumstances, but such a thing would not in a million years have occurred to them. Rick, however, is the oldest of five kids, and there was a lot of pranking in his family. He still really likes to tease, and he ALWAYS gets me with something on April Fool’s Day, but no way can I beat Hank’s story!
HANK: How about you, Reds and Readers? Now that the AFD danger is over, how do you feel about that "holiday"?
And have you ever been really fooled?
I agree with Hallie: the line between funny and mean is often extremely slender . . . so no April Fools pranks and nonsense here [nor when the children were growing up] . . . it's far too easy for the "joke" to go wrong and hurt someone's feelings, so we just don't.
ReplyDeleteThe adoption story is priceless, Hank . . . if all April Fools pranks were like that, I might feel differently about the jokes for that day . . . .
So funny!! I was even laughing as I typed it for today’s post!
DeleteHank, these April Fool’s Day jokes from your sister and your brother were funny.
DeleteWOW, your sister is diabolical with her "authentic" adoption problem. And how can you fall for brother's spider trick again?
ReplyDeleteBeing an only child meant I had no siblings to torment me with pranks or April Fool's jokes. No cousins either. And my parents were so serious, definitely not jokesters.
Believe me, Grace, you did not miss a thing!
DeleteAnd how can I fall for the spider thing? I don’t know! But well, I do.
I have to say that I agree with Hallie that funny is in the eye of the beholder. I know some people who can be funny without being mean. They do not have a mean spirit. As an only child, I do not recall April fools day jokes growing up. Maybe at school?
ReplyDeleteThis morning’s post reminded me of the post on April Fool’s Day when I thought every comment was April Fool’s Day joke.
Yes, so funny! Everything that day is suspect. Just not to me :-)
DeleteThat's the good kind of April Fool's, one that hurts no one.
ReplyDeleteMy family wasn't big on practical jokes except when my little brothers were small, and then they would do the "spider on your back" kind and run away laughing. What is it about brothers!
I usually can't lie with a straight face, but once had my ex utterly convinced that Yul Brynner was my great uncle. My maiden name was Brenner, and my grandfather was as bald as "Uncle Yul", so it was easy to weave a tale that they'd been estranged. Of course that was why he'd changed the spelling of his surname.
Yes, the key is just to have that little tiny bit of logical possibility. I mean, it could be true!
DeleteI did remember a practical joke that could have ended in tragedy, but luckily did not. When I got married the first time friends filled our '57 Ford convertible with balloons, then just laid the top back down without latching it. We got the balloons out, and took off to our first night married, and on the way the top blew up while we were going 50 mph. Luckily, my ex was a super good driver, and he kept control of the car, but it took a while for my heart to stop racing!
DeleteHank, I'm as easy to fool as you are, and your sister really pulled that off. My sisters are the same as me, completely gullible. I don't remember April Fool's pranks at home at all. Maybe salt in the sugar bowl once? And we have no clue how to tease.
ReplyDeleteHugh and his brother in law, both from New Jersey, are big teasers and they can tell a story with a straight face that I fall for every time, or used to. Now I've learned to dish it out at home, and when I succeed and surprise him, I just smile sweetly and say I had the best teacher.
Oh, that’s great! Perfect!
DeleteCoincidentally, did you see this in this morning's NYT? Joseph Boskin, renowned for his April Fool's pranks, including the origin of the "holiday", has died at age 95.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/us/joseph-boskin-dead-april-fools.html?unlocked_article_code=1._E4.PD5-.DMUWqr-Rq0Z1&smid=url-share
Now… That is an amazing coincidence! I have not read the paper this morning yet, so that will be fun to see. You know, I never thought about how it originated. Cannot wait to read this!
DeleteI don't remember any April Fool's jokes in my family, but I do remember at school there were kids who would try and fool you. Usually with something silly but harmless. But I do remember as an adult laughing myself silly over a TV program about the spaghetti harvest in Italy - complete with scenes of women pulling strands of spaghetti off trees and filling their baskets. I still smile when I think of it.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, love all the examples of the harmless jokes above. The Santa being shuffled back and forth, and the weird Barbie doll especially. But the adoption prank (Hank's sister) is hilarious.
I kind of remember that spaghetti harvest thing! And there was a reporter in Boston who did an April fools story on television, and management did not know it was made up, and she got fired for it. Looking back now, that was 35 years ago, but I still can’t figure out how she managed to get that prank story on the air.
DeleteIn 1957 the BBC program Panorama showed a three minute report on a family in Switzerland harvesting a spaghetti tree. Reported with a straight Face (?). Viewers called the BBC afterward asking where they could buy a spaghetti tree. You can find the video on the internet.
DeleteWas Julia's weird Barbie named Annabelle?
ReplyDeleteHank, your family still gets you! I love the pranks Jenn described when her boys were home. Also, Julia's Barbie doll and Rhys's Santa statue. Those are all hilarious. I am not so sure that Hallie's little sister didn't get a complex from her sisters insisting she was adopted.
ReplyDeleteMy parents weren't into pranks although I am sure my big brother was. I can't remember them now, they are among the many things about our childhood together that I have firmly suppressed. Irwin used to tease our kids a little but it was never AFD specific.
HA! I think telling a sibling they are adopted is one of the standard classic tropes of sisterly torment. We used to do it to my sister Liz.
DeleteKnowing my brother, I am sure there were lots of April Fools jokes that went on over the years, but I do not recall any specific ones. Nor do I remember any of the pranks my college roommate and I participated in with two girls across the hall. It was as a back and forth thing for a while. The one prank I do remember is when my children put a rubber band around the kitchen sink sprayer and I got doused when I turned on the faucet. It was funny and just water. No harm done. They all remember it too.
ReplyDeleteAnd did they lie in wait for you to get sprayed so they would have the “fun” of seeing it?
DeleteOh yes, they certainly did, Hank!
DeleteI can do without April Fool's since I'm not clever enough to come up with something funny yet not mean.
ReplyDeleteBut Hank's sister's joke is hilarious.
I think that’s not clever, I think that’s wise :-)
DeleteSo many funny stories! Thanks for the laughs. There wasn't much pranking in my family, but when I got to college, and lived in a coed dorm, I was involved in a lot of pranks. One friend woke up to popcorn popping (a popper with the lid removed) at the foot of her bed. One year our friends sent my twin sister and me on a treasure hunt for our beds on our birthday. There was an elaborate prank on a guy named Bryce, where he came home to a note on his door that said if he opened it, a big water balloon would fall on a piece of cardboard with upturned thumbtacks on it. I don't remember the outcome. I think he managed to get in without splashing water everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI also worked as a front desk clerk at a hotel for 4 years and had many regular business travelers that I got to know. I don't remember how it started, but we began playing little pranks on Paul, a super nice guy, and he retaliated. I remember one that involved leaving an ironing board set up in his room. It all came to an end when I (with encouragement from co-workers) hired a singing telegram company to have a "police officer" arrest him in the lobby. Funny, not funny. We were still friends (he took me to dinner when I left that job) but the pranking stopped.
Wow, that is some elaborate pranking! And it sounds like he was the essence of patience and a good sport.
DeleteOh, these are marvelous! I come from a non-prank family, so I love reading these pranks.
ReplyDeleteIt funnier if it's someone else, right? xx
DeleteMy mother was a master at April Fool tricks. Cardboard instead of bacon in a sandwich, cotton ball baked into a muffin, there’s a robin on the lawn, etc.
ReplyDeleteWOW! What a mom! Did everyone laugh? Did she?
DeleteLove that your sister could pull that off! When I was in college, living in a dorm, about six of us took one girl's bed out of her room and told her the people on the floor below her room were complaining about how loud her bed was so the bed repairman came to get it to fix. Kicker was, her room was above a lobby area. At lunchtime she even told everyone in the cafeteria about the bed repairman. It took her all day to figure out it was a prank. Lots of laughter later, we moved her bed back. We did not do this on AFD!
ReplyDeleteThat is pretty hilarious, I have to say... she thought so ,too, right?
DeleteMy little sister is your little's sister's spirit guide...and I am you! My little sister told the most outrageous stories to me and I fell, hook line and sinker, EVERY TIME! Once she told me mother and dad were buying me a horse, now that we had a yard...I was so excited...I asked mother when the horse was coming only to find out I had been fooled again...
ReplyDeleteforgot to add "R and R on Facebook"
DeleteOh, I totally would have believed that!
DeleteI don't remember any growing up. My father who grew up in on a farm remembers putting a cow on the roof of a barn. During the early days of the dot.com boom I remember friends at Sun telling stories that became legendary of their AFD antics.
ReplyDeleteWHAT?? So funny. Maybe not for the cow...:-)
DeleteFirst Chapter Fun and Reds and Readers? What are you up to, Hank? As for AFD, we didn't do much pranking in our house. Besides the there's a spider on you, or your zipper is open. Your sister is a talented evil genius though. She owes you some cupcakes!
ReplyDeleteSO very true! I will tell her!
DeleteI used to love pranking my now brother-in-law Johnny on April Fool's Day. As the years went by it became harder to come up with creative ideas but I still remember the most memorable one I played on him. It was the first of many April Fool's jokes to follow during the 1970's decade. The picture itself was priceless as Johnny was in glasses by the time he was five and growing up in the 60's the selection of frames were minimal...black or brown. In the milk carton photo he was seven years old decked out in large black-framed eyeglasses, toothy smile, cowlick on top of his head and sports jacket and tie. Obviously a school photo and quite honestly he was a double for Ernie from the TV show "My Three Sons." (I'm dating myself here.) Even as a youngster Johnny was super creative, able to amuse himself with his own imagination and so it was not unusual for him to do spot-on sounds made by buses, firetrucks and ambulances, etc. So he'd run through the house holding an LP or wheel from an old toy and pretend to be the vehicle itself...not the driver. His eyes were the flashing lights for example and his voice became the sounds the vehicle would make. The sounds were surprisingly very accurate even though he was just a little boy. This would explain the comment below the milk carton picture. This was also a time when photos of missing children were often put on the side of milk cartons. Each time Johnny was on the morning shift he would sit at the firehouse kitchen table and have a bowl of cereal. So he would have to grab the milk carton from the fridge. Any firefighters that were on duty at the same time would make sure they drifted out into the kitchen to see if Johnny spotted his own photo on the side of the milk carton. This went on for a few weeks and they had to replace the milk a few times because he did not spot it right away. Into the third week John finally spotted the photo on the side of the carton and started laughing. I was told the carton is still in one of the firehouses even though Johnny is now a retired Fire Captain after 40 plus years of being on the Fire Department. To this day we both laugh about that joke and Johnny still does his spot-on impersonations of vehicles as well as famous people. He amused all of us a few weeks ago during a family dinner as Marlon Brando by stuffing pieces of bread in his cheeks while reciting lines from the film The Godfather. (you had to be there...it was funny) At the end of the 70's decade I finally ran out of ideas to prank John so I stopped. His wife told me that final year I did not play a joke on him he stayed up until after midnight still waiting for something to happen. At 12:01 he declared it April 2nd and he finally went to sleep. So unknowingly I pranked him one more time by not pranking him at all....:-)
ReplyDeleteThat is the BEST story ever! Love this! Brilliant! And you final not-prank, too. Perfect.
DeleteI adore my brother-in-law Johnny; he's like having the baby brother I never had. He's nearly 64 now but in my married family he'll always be the baby. Always easily pranked and loved it every time. Which was special because boys can be especially good at teasing and pranking back. A great example would have to be your brother and your spider story. Haha...Sometimes the simpler the prank the funnier the response.
DeleteWow...I just realized that a section of my story above completely disappeared making it senseless and most definitely out of order. In a nutshell, I once put a photo of my brother-in-law Johnny as a youngster on the side of a milk carton, brought it to the firehouse when he first graduated from the academy and asked the other firefighters on his force to put the carton into the fridge and see if he discovered himself on the carton of milk. The comment below the photo read "Have you seen this missing child? Last spotted driving a wheel and impersonating a firetruck." This was during the time when missing children's photos were printed on the side of milk cartons and the comment was explained in the above story above. Hopefully this fills in the missing parts of the above firefighter story. Feeling a bit stupid right now.
ReplyDeleteI totally understood what it meant! TOTALLY! SO hilarious!
DeleteThank you so much and thank you for unraveling and understanding my story. You are always so gracious and kind with your comments! P.S. What a talented family...both in the book and culinary world! Your mother and father must have been so proud of both you and your sister.
DeleteAwww...Evelyn, that is so kind of you! Yes, Nancy is a star, and it is always wonderful to have a loving sister--AND a great cook in the family!
DeleteHank, your sister’s “April Fool” hurt my heart. As one of the Reds said “diabolical”. As an attorney in child protection matters for twenty years (retired for 12), the situation your sister “set up” as a prank is all too real and painful … children needing stability, adults being found ineligible to adopt. There is enough pain and difficulty for real, than to conjure some up as a “trick my sister” prank. Elisabeth
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Elisabeth, for your sensitive insight.
DeleteWe did some silly ones, if we remembered, like claiming to see strange wildlife in the back yard, but not much else. I showed my students the Snopes "Mr. Ed was played by a zebra" prank, and gave points for the first to question the veracity.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was substitute teaching, both 4th grade teachers were out the same day, and students changed rooms for reading and math (not explained in the lesson plans, but I did figure it out). Students got a bit wild when they realized both teachers were out, but the principal came in to have a private talk with the students, after which they talked about the serious threats is they didn't behave. I saw him later at a storytelling event, and he told me his threat was, "I'll be disappointed, and you KNOW what that means." ;-)
-- Storyteller Mary
Ys, indeed! We know what that means! Poor teachers, they are really in the crosshairs on AFD.
DeleteI feel bad when someone gullible falls for an April Fools joke but I still sent a friend the Tropicana post for 100% pulp OJ. Well, she got crazy excited and was headed to the store. I talked her down before she made the journey. Lesson learned.
ReplyDeleteOh, dear...but you knew what would make her happy....xx
DeleteWhen my sister and I were under ten, we always wanted to play a prank on my father on April Fool's Day, and our mother would help us come up with something in the morning before he went off to work, usually messing with his shoes or his breakfast or his briefcase in some trivial way. We thought our jokes were brilliant, and he always acted so shocked and surprised that his bowl of oatmeal was only a thin layer of oatmeal over Rice Krispies, or his shoelaces were tied together. It never occurred to us that he'd been warned by our mother and was acting shocked to please us. Eventually, we got over this phase, and April Fool's jokes were over for us, but looking back, our parents---our mother by helping us get the pranks ready and our father by falling for our jokes--made those mornings once a year great fun for us.
ReplyDeleteThat is so great. Got to love the oatmeal /rice krispies caper--brilliant!
DeleteI just remembered a prank my two sisters played on my brother-in-law. This was back in the days of landlines. They put shaving cream on the receiver, very inconspicuously. Annette called Michael while Jan was with him. He answered the phone and instantly got an earful and a faceful of shaving cream.
ReplyDeleteI’m so sorry that that just made me laugh… It’s so cinematic!
DeleteFamily jokes were mostly the something is on you type. I mostly worked with women at the bank but we finally had a male boss. Those women were hard on him on April Fool's Day. Once they rearranged his office furniture. Another time they all hid. I stayed at my desk but said I didn't know where everyone was.
ReplyDeleteAt one point in my childhood I did believe my brother was adopted, although I don't think I told him. Everyone in my family read but Bob didn't read much except comics. It wasn't his fault as he was too active for Mom to teach him as she did me before I started school. Our school didn't teach kids to sound words out so he was always a horrible speller. In adulthood, Bob finally started reading more.
Being adopted is a classic childhood thing… I used to threaten my mother that if she stayed being mean to me, my real parents (royalty of course, ) would come and get me. She would say “I’ll help you pack.”
Delete