Here in these parts, where things happen a little differently, the problem of April Fools’ Day requires a unique solution. The primary goal–hopefully you’ve got your notebook out and ready–is to avoid indulging your fellow pranksters on April 1st. Ideally you can sidestep their elaborate stratagems and sit unfazed, cool as a flash frozen cucumber. Even if you fall for their elaborate jokes, simply do as I do. Make the corners of your lips curl up slightly, thus forming a rough reproduction of a smile, cough a bit, and then go to sleep, warm thermos of Nutella in hand.
The trick, the rub, the very cog of our machinations is to extend April Fools’ beyond its humble 24-hour origins into the other 29 days. Let’s call this April Schmucks’ Month, or whatever you want to name it, but I must ask you to refrain from describing the idea as “brilliant” or even “unparalleled.” Those are the two taboo words of the day, so you can’t say them. I find that denying ourselves arbitrary things can make us, well, humble.
Your creative juices are bound to shrink to a trickle over 29 days, but don’t worry. Some guiding principles, which we can cull from the traditional April Fools’ Day, are all you need to sustain your comedic run and win, win, win. First, there is something enduringly funny about not knowing when to stop. It’s like, “What’s the matter, you didn’t appreciate my joke? Why don’t I continue, then? Wait, you’re crying now? Please, I can’t cease my chucklings!”
Second, escalation.
“I have a rubber chicken.”
“Well, I have a rubber leg.“
“That’s pretty funny, because I have a rubber man.”
Third, if no one else laughs, look to yourself.
I know it’s been a long Friday, and I hope you have a restful weekend. What, you didn’t set your clock back 96 hours for Daylight Saving? April Schmucks’!
Market research is preliminary at this point, what some circles might call “nonexistent,” but that doesn’t stop me from talking. I have good reason to believe a musical based on the colorful exploits of Internet advertising would line up Broadway and, come awards night, sweep all the Tonys as well as a Bruno, who’s actually the thug waiting to beat the living shits out of you and steal your trophies.
The title would have to be engaging, that’s a requirement, and I’m thinking along the lines of “Mad About Ads,” “The Scampaign from Hell,” or “My Dear Old Pops.” Even a good title can’t mask a rotten story, though, so we’ll need to address the stageplay. Here’s what I envision.
Quiet stage. No pit orchestra. Garish sequined curtains with nothing behind them. Come showtime, the curtains suddenly fly out toward the audience, shooting neon sequins left and right. People sit with mouths agape until they scream, “MY EYES OH GOD MY EYES PLEASE STOP!” And then the barrage of tackiness pauses. For thirty seconds. The scattering of taste begins anew as the theater empties, but wait! The coat check attendant doles out free samples of Cialis to blinded showgoers.
And this, dear reader, is a reasonable facsimile of success. Picture the acclaim:
“…a…visual…spectacle.” – The New York Times
“This is…the…play.” – The Washington Post
“An outrage…tremendous…” – Variety
“…color…numbers…” – Highlights
“Eyes, schmyes, the soundtrack is required reading for the consummate theater enthusiast.” – People
I also have another draft, assuming you want to produce this masterwork, in which the heroine wakes to a perpetual string of Mondays. Somewhere in the beginning of the play–Act 7 or 9, I can’t remember–she pauses in the middle of her monologue, a variation on the overture plays faintly in the background, and she tosses herself through a window. A window with no panes. This is the happy ending. Maybe I’ll share the sad.
“You were a Communications major, right?” asked my boss, clacking away at his keyboard.
“Yep,” I replied as I braced myself for the assignment.
He swiveled to face me.
“Ah, great. So you know how to read and write?” he said with a grin.
“Just barely.”
Certainly this isn’t always true, given our current exchange of words, but there are moments when it’s absolutely valid. Ever find yourself talking without a care in the world, adjective following verb following succulent noun, only to blurt out a nonsensical sound? Maybe it’s because some people interrupt you and, upon hearing their vocal chords vibrate, you form phrases native to IQ’s of 31 or lower. I do this occasionally. Or perhaps you nurse a favorite word such as “like” or “um,” briskly shepherding it into expansive silences or transitions of thought. And why not? It’s like a soft lamb, after all, shorn and broiled and shorn and broiled until the cows come home to be broiled and shorn and milked.
I mentioned verbal tics the other day, a decidedly restrictive term because there is a constancy implied. True, some twitches and hitches never leave you, but our infrequent flashes of communicative disorder deserve equal attention, don’t you think? They are to be celebrated.
Infernal Combustion
Even for those of us who don’t read the dictionary, the amount of words floating in the ether is simply astounding. How on earth do we manage to choose the correct words, time after time? Oh, wait. Turns out we don’t. Here’s a recent conversation I had.
“So you’re flying down next weekend?” I asked.
“Yup, I should get there at 10:30,” replied my buddy.
“Is there a layaway?”
Strange look.
“What I meant to ask was, do they cram you in the baggage compartment until you pay off your entire ticket?”
Good save.
This one was tame. Consider the next example.
All You Need is Wove
There is another condition wherein certain letters are pronounced like other letters, and the specter of Barbara Walters must be untethered and paraded. You’ve got R’s sounding like L’s, R’s mistaken for W’s, S’s sounding like TH’s, that kind of thing.
I was walking downtown one day when I heard a man who made his L’s into W’s. Sentences like this are possible:
“I don’t wike tawking wike this.”
“I’m fiwwed with burning wust.”
“The desire to hock a woogie is indeed strong.”
And, of course, the real sentence uttered, now a classic in my mind:
“I’ve never seen so many angry people in my wife!“
The visions conjured by this surely trespass our normally impeccable borders, so let’s move on to the next one.
Whatnotarrhea
There was a literature course I took, actually took in its entirety, and in the class was a hot brunette. I mean, shit. She was also the type who knew exactly what visual competencies she commanded, and the knowledge was harvested like an oat. This detracted somewhat from the hotness, but there was something else.
Your eyes, though powerfully persuasive, can be swayed by other senses. Body odor, for instance, can turn even the most attractive person into a virtual leper. The same can be said for the aural experience.
See, this classmate loved, mayhap woved, ending her observations with “and whatnot,” ostensibly because this is what people say at liberal arts institutions.
“Blah, blah, blah, Miltonian ethics…and whatnot.”
“(Oh, look at me, everybody!) Imposed hierarchy, allegorical chain of being…and whatnot.”
“Whatnot!”
Really, you’re basically saying, “I’m not only the sharpest crayon in the box, I’m also the tastiest.”
Typochondriac
Remember, our goal isn’t to crucify, at least for the most part. Some impediments are hardwired into one’s brain, and even if you’re free of these, probe deeply enough and you’ll probably discover some kind of tic.
Case in point: I suffer from slydexia, which is an unfortunate malady that causes you to do thing wackbards, though I guess it happens more with numbers rather than wetters and whatnot.