It's the day the French call, for some reason I've never fathomed, Poissons d'Avril ("April Fish"). And nobody really knows how it started, or when or where. But it's clear that a lot of people have a lot of fun with it, as you can see from some of the classic pranks related in this Wikipedia article.
The classic April Fool's prank in Vickie's family is one that I had a hand in. Here's the background: Vickie's youngest brother Bruce has been an inveterate prankster all his life, and always targeted his mother, usually successfully. She desperately wanted to catch him unaware some April 1, and was finally presented her chance five years ago.
In late March and early April of 2005, nearly the entire Muir family was on a cruise to the Orient. On April 1, we were supposed to dock in Hong Kong, which had been a part of the People's Republic of China since 1999. On the way in to the port, we saw a couple very ominous-looking little gunboats flying the Chinese flag shadowing our cruise ship. They met up with our ship, and two officers boarded, then went (presumably) to talk with the ship's officers. Now, in order to understand the prank, you need to know that Vickie's brother John has started and successfully run several internet-security companies, and that Bruce is part-owner of a business that installs internet systems in buildings in California and some places overseas, so both of them are constantly and deeply involved in internet security issues in a variety of settings and locations.
At Vickie's mother's request, her brothers Mark and John and I contrived to set up Bruce by convincing him that he was about to be arrested by the Chinese government for obscure violations of Chinese internet law. So we wrote the following note and contrived to have it delivered to the mailboxes outside John and Bruce's staterooms:
____________________________________________________________________________
State Ministry for Internal Security
Peoples Republic of China
31 March 2005
To: Sapphire Princess/Security
Question for Identified Passenger
Dear Sir:
During passport control, following person flagged and requested to (1) answer question below and (2) submit to question/detain at District Prefecture #4, 729-731 Lotus Harbor Road upon disembarkation.
Warning: If passenger disembark in Hong Kong, must report immediately to District Prefecture.
Bruce Robert Muir USA
John Richard Muir USA
Li We Quan USA
Robert Arthur Sims Australia
Sergei Illyich Suvarov Russia
Question, please to answer complete in writing:
1. Name of Company and Purpose
2. How long
3. Duty of Job
4. Business relationships with Taiwan companies in last 2 years
5. Purpose in Peoples Republic of China
6. Peoples to meet in Hong Kong
7. Experience of Internet Security Damage
8. Security Classification
Feng Qin Cho
Assistant Prefect - Security
John immediately went to Bruce's stateroom to express his concern about what might happen to them - and Bruce took the bait. He spent the next four hours or so laboriously writing out answers to all the questions, all the while trying anxiously to consult with John on what might happen once we reached Hong Kong. Somehow the phrase "question/detain" had him worried! He was seriously considering staying on the ship in Hong Kong harbor rather than face the tender mercies of District Prefecture #4. In fact, after finally finishing all his lengthy answers to the questions, he asked Vickie's father to help him talk with the Purser's staff to see if his answers would be satisfactory. Dick went to the Purser's Office with Bruce and just before they arrived, finally told Bruce what was happening. He tried to get back at the perpetrators by arranging with the stewards to short-sheet all our beds that night, but all agreed that Bruce had finally met his match in the April Fool's prank business.
Incidentally, it was on this trip that Mark and I had the discussions that led to the founding of GreenFire, our advanced geothermal company that is (with any luck at all) about to be funded. It's almost (but not quite) as fun as writing letters for the Chinese State Ministry of Internal Security!
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