For kids, April Fools’ Day is a time to play pranks on family members and classmates. For many adults, those April Fools’ traditions don’t cross the threshold into their places of employment. But not for everyone.

In honor of today, we sought out memorable office escapades pulled on April 1. The list we received would impress the likes of Ashton Kutcher or “The Office”‘s Jim Halpert. Read on to see what sort of shenanigans have taken place in area offices (including the Sun Journal’s).

Exploding briefcase

Cal Brown of Litchfield worked as an outside salesman for Sears from 1974 to 1991. In the ’70s, Brown recalled, “a co-worker was elevated to a management position and was preparing for his first trip to Philadelphia for a meeting.” The co-worker had purchased a new Samsonite brief case. When asked what that was for, he gleefully stated that he had to play the part. While he was preparing for the trip, Brown and his colleagues stuffed the new briefcase full of Styrofoam packing peanuts. The briefcase was bulging, said Brown, but the victim “noticed neither the bulge nor the weight. We then waited eagerly for his return.” When the co-worker returned, wrote Brown, “he told us that all went well until the second day, at the end of the conference, (when) he laid his briefcase on top of the conference table and unlatched it. Poof! The peanuts burst into the air.”

A nickel-pincher

Brown also recalled a prank that hinged on (then) cutting-edge technology. “Another time,” he wrote, “we had an assistant manager who was known to be very thrifty. Many of his trips to the warehouse went through a door at the rear of my office and next to my desk. When super glue first came on the market, I purchased a tube and glued a nickel to the floor, (in the) center of the door path. Unfortunately, I wasn’t around to see him make his next journey to the warehouse. Those who did talked about it for a long time. Being that it was well-adhered to the floor tile, he tried relentlessly to get if off. When his hands wouldn’t work, he got a hammer and chisel.” Apparently that worked, wrote Brown.

Pooper scooper surprise

Nancy Lavallee of Lisbon orchestrated an office prank involving her sister, who also happened to be her boss. “I thought it would be fun to play an April Fools’ prank on her,” Lavallee wrote. “It was not unusual for the employees to come into the office on their days off to show off their children or pets or just visit. I made no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies and rolled them into the shape of an unpleasant doggie deposit, placed it on a piece of shiny clear plastic, slid the surprise under her desk, and waited.

“She arrived for work, opened her desk drawer to put away her purse and rolled out her office chair. Suddenly she noticed the present under the desk and with a very firm and unhappy voice, which also included a few colorful words, (asked) who would dare to bring in their dog and irresponsibly leave this disgusting mess under her desk.

“I then came in for the rescue, observed the pile and quickly reached down to the floor with my bare hands, snatched up the gross glob and put it into my mouth. She still talks about that prank,” wrote Lavallee.

Computer caper

Reader Jeff Fecteau shared a tech-based prank that involved an unlocked computer and two co-workers. “The person next to him had full access” to the co-worker’s desktop, he wrote. The prankster “took a screenshot of the desktop and saved it. He then hid all of the icons and made the desktop the screenshot he took. When my co-worker came back from lunch he tried to click on the icons but nothing would happen. He unplugged and plugged in his mouse and finally rebooted. Upon booting back up to the desktop he was disappointed to find that he still couldn’t click open any of the icons.” The victim did eventually learn of the prank so he could get back to work, wrote Fecteau.

‘Jeep’ tricks

Scott Thistle of Auburn could have filled a book with the pranks from his days in the Air Force. Here’s one of his favorites: “I was stationed at RAF Chicksands, a U.S. Air Force listening post in England during the end of the 1980s. The work required most people on the station to wear headsets to listen to various types of communications. We also used teletype machines that used five-ply carbon paper. As new airmen arrived on station they were routinely subjected to a host of pranks by the old-timers. One trick involved waiting for a new “jeep” (just enough experience to pass) to leave his station for a lunch or bathroom break. The prankster would then take a sheet of black carbon paper and rub it on the outside of the jeep’s black headset covers. By the end of the day the person who had their headsets carboned would have black smudges all around their ears, sides of their neck and face. They wouldn’t notice it until they looked in a mirror or until somebody gave it away by laughing.

Kitties and crushes

Dawn Hartill of Lewiston admits to being a prankster — and on occasion getting her just desserts.

“One year,” she wrote, “to celebrate a co-worker’s birthday, we (OK, mostly me) decided to decorate his cubicle for the occasion. This co-worker was a man’s man (NRA member, ex-military, drove a HUGE SUV, etc.) and we decorated his cube with a “Hello Kitty” theme using “Hello Kitty” wrapping paper as wallpaper on the cube walls, buying him “Hello Kitty” desk supplies (pens, pencils, erasers and an HK desk blotter) and even getting him an HK Blackberry cover for his work mobile phone.

“The joke was on us though, because he kept the theme for over two years and we had to stare at that pink mess every day as we went to work.

“Because I like to prank so much, I have found myself on the receiving end as well. One time, I left my work Blackberry on the desk while I went to the copy machine and I forgot to lock the screen. The guy that sat across from me noticed this and sent an email from my Blackberry to another co-worker confessing my secret crush and undying love to him. I would have never known that the email was sent except the guy replied and said he was shocked. Since I am happily married, the whole office got quite a kick out of this one!

Lottery lark

The Sun Journal staff aren’t immune to the occasional April Fools’ Day gag. One evening, a Sun Journal employee came in toting the lottery ticket he bought every week. He put the ticket down on his desk and went to get his dinner. An enterprising co-worker was on his computer, designing a page for the next day’s newspaper that would feature the winning lottery numbers. He quickly typed in the numbers from the co-worker’s lottery ticket and printed out a test page, which is customarily done so that the pages can be checked for errors. When the employee came back from dinner, he noticed the printout on his desk, began checking it for errors and then noticed that his lottery ticket matched the numbers on the printout. He immediately jumped up on the desk and began screaming “I won! I won!”

A suspicious editor in the room who wasn’t aware of the prank calmly suggested that couldn’t be true, and that he was probably the victim of a joke. Sure enough, a quick check of the real winning numbers sent to the newspaper by the Lottery Commission proved the hoax and dashed the employee’s hopes for an early retirement. BTW, the page designer quickly changed the numbers back to the actual winning lottery numbers.

Clubfoolery

Jim Wilkins of Auburn recalled a prank that revolved around a co-worker’s new, “fancy Ping golf club” that he had delivered to the office. The package arrived but the co-worker hadn’t returned to work yet. Wilkins wrote: “I brought an ancient and thoroughly (used) driver that had been sitting in my basement for years and swapped the two clubs, carefully re-sealing the box. I also put a note in the box telling him that I hoped he’d have fun using this ‘great’ club – I even signed my name thinking he would recognize it and realize the joke.”

But he didn’t, according to Wilkins. “He completely blew his top and even went so far as to call the company he bought it from and complain about this ‘Jim’ guy who wrote the note.”

“Personally, I thought it was a brilliant prank and had a great laugh. It still makes me laugh.”

A fools’ story

By MetroCreative, Special to the Sun Journal

April Fools’ Day is a day when people play pranks on unsuspecting friends, co-workers and family members.

The history of April Fools’ Day, or All Fools’ Day, dates back to 16th century France and the reform of the calendar under Charles IX, when the Gregorian calendar was introduced and New Year’s Day was moved from April 1 to Jan. 1.

Back then, word did not spread nearly as quickly as it does now, and some people didn’t find out about the date change until several years after it was initiated. As a result, some were still celebrating the New Year on April 1, and the rest of the population ridiculed those people who were not in the know. And they were sent on pranks called “fool errands.” These pranks were also known as “poisson d’avril,” which means literally April fish, because a young fish is easily caught.

Eventually the April pranks spread outside of France into other areas of Europe, and different countries developed their own names and variations of pranks.

In presentday North America, April Fools’ Day is celebrated with jokes and pranks, some of which have actually fooled the masses. Over the years, certain pranks have stood out as monumental April Fool’s Day hoaxes. Here’s a look at some of those more memorable pranks.

— In 1976, British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC radio that, at 9:47 a.m., a once-in-a-lifetime event was going to happen. He said that Pluto was going to pass behind Jupiter and create a momentary decrease in the Earth’s gravity. It would result in a strange floating sensation on Earth. The BBC began to receive hundreds of phone calls from people having said they felt the gravitational effects.

— Discover magazine reported in 1995 that a new species of animal was found in Antarctica. It was called the hotheaded naked ice borer. These animals were purported to have bony plates on their heads that would become burning hot from numerous blood vessels underneath. The animal could bore through ice at high speeds. The magazine received more mail for this story than any story in the history of the publication.

— In 1998, Burger King printed a full-page advertisement introducing the “Left-Handed Whopper,” which was specially designed for all of the lefties. The condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of left-handed customers. Thousands of customers headed into Burger King to get the special burger.

— It was reported in 1998 that the Alabama Legislature had voted to change the mathematical value of pi from 3.14159 to the “Biblical value” of 3.0. News spread quickly over email, and the Alabama Legislature began receiving hundreds of calls from angry protesters.

— In 1992, comedian Rich Little impersonated the voice of Richard Nixon to announce Nixon’s new candidacy for president. The announcement included audio clips of Nixon delivering a candidacy speech. Listeners flooded National Public Radio’s telephone lines to express outrage.

— In 1977, British newspaper The Guardian published a seven-page supplement on San Serriffe, supposedly a small republic consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands in the Indian Ocean. The two main islands were called Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Phones rang with eager people trying to find out more information about the idyllic spot. Only a few realized everything about the republic was named after printer’s terminology.

— In 1996, the Taco Bell Corp. announced it had purchased the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Protesters called the historic park in Philadelphia where the bell was located. Taco Bell revealed the joke a few hours later. White House press secretary Mike McCurry added to the prank by announcing the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold. It would be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

— Only one TV station broadcasted in Sweden in 1962 and did so in black and white. The station’s technical expert said that, thanks to new technology, viewers could convert their TV sets to color reception by pulling a nylon stocking over the TV screen. Thousands of people fell for the prank.

— A Sports Illustrated journalist made up a story about a new rookie pitcher who would be playing for the Mets in 1985. The pitcher’s name was Sidd Finch, and he could reportedly throw a baseball 168 mph with pinpoint accuracy. Surprisingly, Sidd Finch had never even played the game before. Instead, he had mastered the “art of the pitch” in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the “great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa.” Mets fans fell for the prank and the magazine was flooded with requests for more information.

— In 1957, the BBC news show “Panorama” featured a story that a mild winter and elimination of the spaghetti weevil enabled a bumper spaghetti crop by Swiss farmers. Footage of Swiss peasants pulling spaghetti off trees was released, and hundreds were taken in by the prank. Many called the BBC asking how they could grow a spaghetti tree for themselves.

Copy the Story Link