My inner child is bitter about April 1
- posted: 01 Apr. 2008
- scrollopinion@byui.edu
I am one of those people you might call sensitive.
Well, not since I’ve worked on Scroll, but back in the day, especially in elementary school, I was one of those kids who cried a lot — I’ll be honest. Just ask my older brother, who was the cause of a lot of my crying.
Anyway, the story of my blatant hatred of April Fools’ Day starts in fourth grade. It started out like any other day, and any other April Fools’ Day, for any primary school child. Jokes were played on everyone, such as telling someone “There’s a spider in your hair,” and life was good, yet silly.
Until I thought I was getting called to the principal’s office.
“Matt, your brother was playing on the monkey bars, fell off and broke his arm,” said Luke, one of my soon-to-be former friends, as we rushed back from the playground.
We were supposedly rushing toward the office when we passed our classroom. All of a sudden, a resounding “April Fools’!” met my ears, and I stopped dead in my tracks, looking in horror at my friend who came to get me, and my classmates, who were all grinning like the cat who caught the canary.
But it didn’t end there, with me stomping off in tears. Fifth grade brought a call to the principal’s office again, this time with the mom of the friend who came to get me involved. I walked in the office, saw her there, heard the principal say, “Your brother Matt,” and then I walked out, mad. It was silly anger, now that I look at it, but it was real when I was 11.
So be careful whom you’re playing your jokes on today and try not to traumatize anyone younger than you — especially by giving awful names to your children. 
