April Fool’s Day Jokes Are Never Funny

There are countless forms of comedy that are indisputably unfunny: The knock knock joke. Anything uttered by Daniel Lawrence Whitney. Articles with URLs that contain the words “inpapasbasement.com.” Add to that list every April Fool’s prank you can possibly conceive of.

April Fool’s Day is an excuse for unfunny people to try their hand at humor. Well, guess what? It doesn’t work. Poor comedians. Only they have to endure a day where everyone attempts to perform their job with disastrous results. People wouldn’t accept the general populace pretending they’re doctors and performing amateur surgery on May 23. August 22 isn’t “So You Think You’re an Electrician” Day. (I can see it now: Thousands of morbidly obese Americans plunging screwdrivers into power sockets. The Midwest would smell of burned bacon for weeks.) I suppose the closest we come is Halloween, when thousands of ladies try their hand at dressing like sex industry workers for the night, but: 1. God smiles upon this behavior like the union of Abram and Sarah and 2. It’s a bunch of strippers and hookers you’re offending. Just slip them a $20, smack them on the ass and tell ’em to buy themselves something nice.


If you do insist on trying your hand at some sort of April Fool’s prank, at least follow these guidelines:


-Perpetrate it as close to 12am as possible. Some people won’t realize it’s April 1 yet. You know, people with real thoughts in their heads and concerns in their lives.


-Go for broke. Claiming you’re pregnant, engaged or received a promotion is trite. That you were violently sexually assaulted by a special ed class? Now I’m listening.


-If someone calls you out on the ruse, immediately let them know that you were, in fact, lying. Tittering like a Japanese schoolgirl as you protest that you really did just bump into Peyton Manning in downtown Fairfax, VA doesn’t serve to convince me. It does make me want to play Patrick Bateman to your Paul Allen, though. Try getting a reservation at Dorsia now…


So there you have it. Something else in this world that I hate. Shocking, I know. At least there’s a chance my Facebook and Twitter pages won’t be clogged with quite so much crap come April 1, 2012, either because people heeded this article’s advice or that whole Mayan apocalypse thing. Whatever gits r done.