Every year, people unite for one day just to screw with people. Spring has begun, and moods are generally positive. April Fool's Day is an opportunity to knock it all down. Don't waste it.
aab1020 asked: We are now less than 45 days from April Fool's Day. What 'long con' pranks should be started around now?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
"Honey, that house looks familiar..."
We spent 2 months in Europe 2 summers ago and rented out the house on Airbnb to cover expenses while gone. One of the renters was a film crew that shot a documentary about a local psychopath who killed a few people. The producers needed a home setting where they could interview witnesses and people who knew the guy or victims. There are plenty of interviews of people describing the murders and how evil this person was that clearly show our living room, guest room and kitchen in the background. My wife was not involved in managing the Airbnb listing so while I mentioned the film crew to her 2 years ago she never asked what it was about and I'm sure she has absolutely no idea that this footage exists. I plan on just casually coming across the documentary on April 1st and watch it with her to see her reaction.
This tread won't self-destruct, though.
A while back I got an app that could send an error message to a computer with customized text.
For a few weeks I would send sporadic messages like "Monitor Error 1003." "Monitor synch error," etc.
On April Fools day I sent the message "Monitor radiation shield has failed, please step back 5 feet."
This was back in the old Macintosh Finder days with a big 24" CRT. There are some apps that can generate windows 10 errors out there that you can google, but I haven't used them so I won't recommend them for anyone to install.
THIS IS PURE GENIUS.
Always spin your eggs.
My great-grandpa got his kids to start cracking hard boiled eggs on their foreheads. Then, on April 1st, he gave my great-uncle a raw egg.
This is why I always do the spin test before cracking eggs on my forehead.
MY GRANDPA DID THIS! I have never seen it anywhere but he would have us crack the confetti filled hardboiled shells and have a "lottery" with an actual hard boiled egg.
Brilliant.
Here's how I convinced a friend his house was haunted.
Rain-x is the stuff you put on your windshield to keep it from fogging up. Instead, use it to write on your friend's bathroom mirror various "haunting" phrases. They go into the bathroom, lock the door, get in the shower, and come out to find someone has seemingly written on their bathroom mirror while they thought they were alone.
"Get out", "help me", something more personal, or whatever you like.
Every time you want to change the message, just use some dish soap and then glass cleaner.
Dip your face in it, then press your face to the mirror leaving a face print of it
This is a win/win, you'll scare the living sh!t out of your friend, AND you'll probably die.
Death in this case is just a bonus haunting.
Found my April Fool's plans.
The old Penny Trick. I did this to my mom and it drove her nuts.
Day 1, you leave a penny in an obvious spot where you'd expect to find a penny, and wait for them to find it.
Day 2, repeat. Put another penny somewhere else, but obvious. Let them find it.
Repeat this off and on for roughly a week. After around a week, they should start to think about it more. Then start leaving them twice a day for the week.
On week 3, start leaving them in odd spots that pennies shouldn't exist. Bathroom sink, windowsill, inside their shoes. Get creative. Pillows, inside their pockets if you can manage it.
After a while if done right, it will drive them absolutely mad. I was questionable on its effectiveness when I first started it, but after week two my mom was freaking out because she kept finding them.
edit
Source for where I first heard of this:
I did something similar with plastic cutlery and almost ruined a friendship.
Amazing.
This is more of a "day of" situation but it's too good not to share.
At my work we clock in by punching in our employee number. Last year one of my coworkers placed a sign on the time clock that read "the time clock has been updated for voice activation. Please state your full name followed by 'clocking in/out'."
All day I just heard people yelling at the time clock trying to clock in. It was incredible!
My manager was in on it too so no one was made late because of it. Just good clean fun.
This, but with Elmer's glue.
Bring hand moisturizer to work, and leave it somewhere like the break room. Conspicuously use it, and convince as many other people to use it as possible.
On April 1st, replace it with a bottle filled with water-based lube.
I would do this, but with hand sanitizer.
Hmmm, we do have a communal bottle of hand sanitizer at work. I am a little tempted to do this.
Whatever this is funny.
Maybe not a long con, but you'll need a syringe, and idk how long that takes to get. Anyway in ninth grade, me and my friends always stole each other's food at lunch when someone got up to go to the bathroom.
So one time I filled white lindor truffles with ranch and two of my friends vomited.
Your local feed or tractor supply will have large syringes designed for livestock vaccinations. You can buy 1 there.
So, for all the students reading, know that if you get caught your going to get in trouble for both having a needle at school without a medical need (like epi or insulin) and for tampering with food. So, make your prank food at home, be sure you are aware of any food allergies, and definitely don't attempt to give them to a staff member.
What a great gift idea.
My friend got me with a glitter bomb one time, which she watched me open in my bedroom, right next to my bed. I still found glitter three years later when I moved apartments.
When it happened, I knew she would be wary of a counter attack, so I waited. And I decided not to just wait, but to long con her. I knew she liked candles, so I went for simplicity: I got her a candle that smelled great at first, but eventually burned down to smell awful. Not after an hour, mind you, but after quite a bit of it burned off giving a very pleasant apple pie scent.
Months went by, and I would see it at her place. Burned a little, but not too much. Occasionally I would notice it getting lower, but it was slow going. I got disheartened when I didn't see it any longer, until I noticed that she had moved it to her bedstand, right by where her head would be when she slept.
Aww, so sweet. She liked my gift.
Cut to many more months having passed. Almost two years since I first got her the candle, I get a bunch of angry texts late at night. "You ahole! That candle! It reeks in my bedroom!" My magnum opus had finally been achieved.
It turns out that she had brought her date home that night and put the candle on to set some ambiance. As they're getting hot and heavy, they start to smell what she described as "pure sewage". It took them five minutes to figure out it was the candle and not some sort of sewage backup, then the smell lingered for an hour.
In the end, the guy was a good sport and recognized a quality prank when he sees one, so it didn't ruin anything between them, but to have a long con end that spectacularly was just better than I could have ever hoped for.
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
I work with a group of 5-6 guys. I plan on separately swearing each of them to secrecy, then revealing that one of their coworkers is planning a wicked April Fool's day gag on them and that we should work to plan an even better one against this schemer. If I do it right, I'll have my coworkers conniving to destroy one another and sit back and watch it all unfold...as long as they don't catch on.
Edit: Thank you for the gold! Let me also add that I'm a good sport and fully expect to fail at this; HOWEVER, the epic win that would come from this actually working is a story I'll be able to tell forever. If anyone knows this Mash episode, I'd love to see it!! Maybe I can get a pointer or two. Lastly, I can't start too early or they'll figure it out for sure. I'm thinking two weeks might be ideal to start stirring up trouble.
