Why I Dread April Fool's Day

It's not just because I am hugely gullible and fall for a new media hoax every year (except for this one...see NPR post below). It's because, as a child, it's the day when I would go hungry.

First, a little background on my mother. She's the greatest Mom in the world. She made my lunches every day, from when I was 3, to when I was 17. My friends used to make fun of me in high school for bringing a "mommy lunch" to school every day, but I didn't care, because while they were eating disgusting tacos with stale shells and greasy, goopy beef spread, I was snacking on a PB&J with Cheetos. Is there a better food to find in your lunchbag than Cheetos when you're a kid? I defy you to think of one.

Anyway...she was my mother. I loved her. I trusted her. Which was why, every April Fool's, I'd forget what happened the year before, and open my lunchbag to find 2 slices of bread with a note between: April Fool's!

I guess it's a lot of pressure to be perfect, and everyone needs a release once in a while. Which is why I'm not bringing up the time that my Mom abandoned me at a public park and my grandfather found me crying under the tree I had decided would be my new home, or the time when she chased me and my siblings around the house with vampire fangs on, or when she and my father used to lock me outside the house at night and hide somewhere in the dark between the garage and my room so that she could scare me when I finally did manage to break-in. Nope, that would be petty.

Moreover, the fact is, I'm sure I deserved every single one of these things at least 30 times over. I was an evil goblin of a child. Bored, unstoppably disobedient, as convinced of my own opinions as any right-wing demagogue, and possessed of an adult's vocabulary without an adult's restraint or good manners. Literally, a child only a mother could love. That I grew up normalish (or really, at all, judging from all of the people I managed to piss off) is a testament to her incredible parental abilities.

So, since April Fool's day is supposed to be a time to do something unexpected, I'm thanking my mom for being so cool. No joke.