April Fools’ Day: the best and worst of times. On one hand: brands trying and failing to be funny by sharing pointless, obvious prank press releases. On the other: terrifying co-workers, partners and friends beyond all reason with thoughtless pranks!
And with April Fools’ right around the corner, Reddit users have been sharing their best ever pranks – and they range from the wholesome to the downright evil.
There are the benevolent ones…
“Not me, but my mom played a good one on my dad. One morning, he poured his usual bowl of cereal and set it on the table. He put the spoon in it, then got up to go to the bathroom. While he was gone, my mom took the spoon out and replaced it with a fork. My dad’s look of confusion was priceless.” – throwaway4noreasons
“I’m a fan of benign pranks.
I used to have a job that involved driving with a partner for an hour each way, once a week. One year, I had an especially gullible partner who I often teased about how easy it was to get her to believe anything.
That year, April Fools’ fell on my driving day. After a few minutes driving, I found a spot in the conversation to say “you know, it says ‘gullible’ on the ceiling.”
She gave me a jokingly dirty look. “Please. I know that one, I’m not that clueless.”
“Are you sure? Because it definitely says that.”
“Ha, ha - try another one.”
“Well, okay then,” I shrug and go back to driving.
The moment a minute later when she surreptitiously sneaked a peek at the ceiling and saw that I’d actually written “gullible” directly over her head - the sweetest prank payoff ever.” –feioo
“Not so much a ‘prank’, but it does technically qualify as one:
One year I asked my mother what she wanted for Christmas, and she gave me a specific book title that she wanted. Now, I was more than happy to oblige, but I also wanted to surprise her on the day, so I ordered the book online, and when it arrived I stashed it in the house.
While she was out of the house one day I went to her bookshelf, found an older book from the same series, replaced it with the newly purchased one and wrapped the older book.
When she unwrapped the book at a family gathering, she put on the ‘I didn’t want this, but I’ll be polite and say nothing’ act, at which point I revealed the ruse.
So, she got the book she wanted, and I got to surprise her on Christmas. Everyone got what they wanted.” – Tyrranis
“One year, me and my younger brothers turned everything possible upside down in the kitchen after our parents had gone to bed. Cookbooks, food, the calendar, paintings, basically everything but appliances. It took my parents a few moments to actually figure out what we had done in the morning, but their reaction was priceless.
Best part was, it was a prank that kept on giving: for literally the next year, every so often something would be found that hadn’t gotten turned rightside up and everyone would have a good chuckle. Once or twice even happened when there was company over.” – WelchCLAN
The slightly meaner…
“One year April Fool’s was on a Sunday, so all throughout the evening before I snuck around methodically changing the clocks ahead by 4 hours.
The next morning (on April 1) the parents woke up around their usual time and to their horror found out we were all 2 hours late for church. Which doesn’t sound like a big deal, except my dad was the head pastor. After watching them in sheer panic for a few minutes I caved and told them. They were NOT amused.” – inv4zn
“I was an army medic. Unfortunately, when you’ve got a bunch of blokes sitting round, a lot of practical jokes start happening. The most subtle one I saw, involved spraying local anaesthetic on someone’s coffee mug, and letting it dry. You can check the coffee hasn’t been tampered with, make sure no one has substituted salt for sugar, sniff the milk to be sure it hasn’t been left in the sun for a while. If you’re a really suspicious bastard, you pour a bit of water first to make sure there’s nothing in the kettle or spout. Then you take a first experimental sip. It’s ok. You progress to bigger sips as you enjoy your drink. Then your lower lip goes to sleep, and you dribble coffee down your uniform.” – foul_ol_ron
“My sister did not back up her phone despite me telling her to several times. I had the same phone as her. I backed up my phone reset it to factory settings switched covers with her phone and watcher her morning descend into chaos.” – Ghost_Peanuts
“Create a craigslist ad for “free chickens”. Create something along the lines of “had a storm and the coop was destroyed, chickens need a home blah blah”. List a coworker/friend’s name and cell phone number. Wait for ensuing chaos on said phone. Did this to one of the supervisors at work, knowing full well he’d be the kind who’d get into a craze figuring out the problem.” – GimmedatPewPew
And the downright evil
“Not me but my sister once unscrewed the shower head and placed a hard life saver candy in there, so that after my shower I was subtly sticky. :(“ – The_Wise_Frog
“I replaced my housemate’s soap with a very neatly carved block of extra mature cheese.
He was a very hairy gentleman and complained that the smell remained for the rest of the day despite several more- cheese free- showers.” – Zulu_Cthulhu
“I’m thinking of finding a recording of two guys having an NSA-like conversation and having my mother’s amazon echo play it at a random time during the day.” –MRiley84
Moral of the story? When it comes to April 1st, trust no-one.
(Image: Levi Saunders / Unsplash)
