I’m not a huge fan of pranks. Never have been. I find them to largely be mean-spirited, intended to humiliate.

No, I’m not fun at parties and I will not lighten up. You know who else is not fun at parties? Batman. You know who is probably fun at parties? The Wonder Twins.

QED and amen.

Anyway.

Here, the big April Fools’ Joke is that the jokes in my house were pretty terrible because all pranks were largely driven by my kids. They gave themselves the giggles by covering up the last “ps” on the package of Peeps. Hilarious.

To get into the spirit of things and not be permanently labeled “The Parent Where Fun Goes to Die,”  I tried to pull one prank on my husband, wherein I put a fake parking ticket on his car. I made the mistake of telling the boys I was doing this, so instead of letting me enjoy the near-heart-attack this would have induced in my husband when he casually glanced out the front window at his vehicle, my boys kept saying, “Uh, hey dad, did you look at your car?” and finally my husband DID look at his car, smirked, and said, “I would have been fooled by that.”

DANG IT.

Jokes on me, per usual, because I promised to take my kids to Dave and Buster’s and I followed through on that yesterday. The only positive I can report is that I was unable to hear any and all complaints about returning to school this morning, because both Dave and Buster blew out 90% of my inner ear structure, mostly via the three-foot-tall Space Invaders Game.

Not that I expect an arcade to be quiet. Although a composite library-arcade would be an interesting business model.

Anyway, March. Lions, lambs, ins, and outs.

The month flew by. The kids took turns getting bad cases of the flu, then we traveled, then we came home and had a new friend join the family (more on him later). There was not nearly enough time to write, which has left me itchy. I’m a quarter of the way into the year (well, not just me, you are too) and I am not as far along in any of my writing goals as I wish to be. Time to double-down – a good thing, too, as April and May are promising to be chock-full o’ meetings, opportunities, and writing courses.

Here are some things I enjoyed in March:

• My favorite read of the month, by far, was Jon Stewart’s Naked Pictures of Famous People, possibly the funniest book I’ve ever read. This collection of essays is balls-to-the-walls nutty, assertive, wacky, and brilliant, as you’d expect. His spoof about Hitler’s “apology tour,” in which Hitler goes on Larry King in 1999, is terrifyingly prescient while still able to skewer both Hitler and the media.
• Have you seen East Side Sushi? RUN, don’t walk, and watch this. Several times. Then invite people over for a fusion-cuisine potluck and watch it again.

• On a more serious note, this is a must read about holocaust survivors and their care in their later years.
• March is Women’s History month; however, this is a great read any time of the year.
• This article should help get me through the workload these next few months.
• Fantastic quote. 

And now we’re in April, the strawberry-rhubarb pie of months. Wishing you all the showers and eventual May Flowers and the subsequent pilgrim jokes that always tag along.