April's Fool

I am not much of a trickster. My mind, when I press it into this mode, tends to fall immediately to the obvious and overused options that I really don't think anyone would find amusing. So no, I did not post on Facebook that my wife was pregnant or that I won the lottery (if you're reading this and you did that, then I think it was a very funny and clever little trick).

However, I do tend to fall into the ploys of others rather quickly. Yesterday (April Fool's day--which actually developed from an interesting history, you should look it up) I played Bozo to both Google's "Auto Pilot" and Pardon the Interruption's story about Rick Pitino muscling John Calipari out of his new job as basketball coach at Kentucky. Apparently I really trust media outlets and internet search engines.

Being April's Fool is humbling, but I've found that when I pay a little attention I actually get a chance to learn something:

I was at my friend Stefanie's house yesterday when she came home from Happy Hour. As she walked in the door, my other friend Kaitlin--with whom Stefanie had been out--also called my cellphone. Both were eager to share this extraordinary event that had happened at Williamsburg Steakhouse and great Happy Hour spot Opus 9.

So, I listened in stereo as each related the tale of a mirror behind the bar crashing down from its moorings. As it fell, it spewed glass in every direction and took many of the liquor bottles sitting on their shelves to an early doom. Sitting about ten feet away, both Stefanie and Kaitlin were apparently in the shooting gallery of glass shards created by the collapse and had to take action to avoid greivous harm. (In defense of the restaurant, I should point out that I've been there twice and have not yet had to fight for my life.)

As you can imagine, this was quite a jarring experience for them and they were very eager to share the story. And I was as caring, concerned and compassionate of a friend as I could be:

"Baloney!" (Okay, so I didn't say baloney, but I told blogger that there wouldn't be adult content on the blog.)

I'm sure you can imagine that, having already been duped twice on such an auspicious day, I was not going to let my guard down and fall victim to what was obviously such a simple minded ploy. I was smarter than that!

Not only was I smarter, but I was willing to go the extra mile to revel in my victory of un-gullibility. So I had Stefanie get me the number for Opus 9 and I called. A very nice sounding gentleman answered the phone (I've changed his name to protect his identity):

Very Nice Sounding Gentleman: "Thank you for calling Opus 9, this is Dmitri."

Me: "Good evening, Dmitri. I am sorry to take up your time, but two of my friends were just in your dining establishment and came home with a story that, frankly, I have red-flagged as a blatant--and rather simplistic--April Fool's prank. Did you have an incident tonight involving a large falling mirror and an explosion of liquor bottles? Again, sorry for wasting your time with this."

Very Nice Sounding Gentleman: "Honestly, I wish I could say that they were trying to play a trick on you. Unfortunately, we did have one of our large mirrors decide to attack the back of the bar."

Me: "Dmitri, I can now see that you are a part of this prank. And frankly I'm disappointed. Good day."

Okay, so I'm willing to be the big person and--even though I'm still considering going by the restaurant and seeing this with my own eyes--admit that I was wrong. My friends were telling the truth and instead of sharing in the dazzling fright they must have had, I chose to skeptically deny the possibility that it was true. April Fools made me a failure as a friend. I'm so disappointed.

Don't worry, I will not allow this disappointment to ruin me. Instead, I've sought deeper meaning from this experience. April Fool's is a day when we try to play light-hearted tricks on each other for no other reason than to pass the time. I'm an April Fool, not just because I fell for two tricks but because I doubted a truth.

In life, I'm probably going to fall for many more tricks (some not so light-hearted as yesterday's) and deny many more truths (some far more important than whether a mirror fell). I hope that I can discover my errors with relative ease, but that probably won't be the case. All I can do is own my mistakes and try to chuckle about the oddities of the world and incompleteness of my own knowledge.

In the end, we're all April's Fools.