During lockdown, on April 1st 2020, my kids rang their dad at work from the summer-house in our garden (where they were allegedly doing their home-schooling). They told him that they had behaved very badly and refused to do their school work – leading to a row with me. They said that I had stormed off, slammed the door to the summer house and that it had jammed. And that I was so angry that I had driven away and left them. They told him that they had no key to get out, so he had to come home and free them. It took a good five minutes for him to realise that this wasn’t quite so…
On the 1st April 2021, I rang my husband at work. I affected a bizarre mid-Atlantic accent and said that I was a journalist calling from the Yorkshire Post, wanting to interview him about his company, the ‘Award Winning Dark Woods Cafe’. I instantly heard the edge in his voice, when he replied ‘Great, but we’re a roastery, not really a cafe’. But I breezed on with, yes, I believe it’s a really child-friendly cafe where kids are welcome to run around and – and that even dogs are very welcome indeed (they always get his goat, these issues). By the time I had the gall to pronounce ‘Slaithwaite’ as ‘Slaythewayte’ I could tell that he was about to blow a gasket.*
He vowed not to fall for April Fool’s ever again…
But hey, a year later… Today my son and I were at a medical appointment in the centre of Huddersfield. I rang my husband from the car park. When he answered the phone at his workplace, I was sounding pretty hysterical, I told him that he had to come and get me immediately as my car had apparently been parked in the wrong place and had been towed away. I said that he needed to bring two hundred pounds with him to get it out of the impound and, worst of all, they’d actually mistakenly towed our 14 year old son away as he’d been asleep in the back, waiting for me to leave the health centre.
I told him that our lad had just called me from a vehicle impound on the other side of Huddersfield, not really understanding what was going on, and in considerable distress.
At that point he twigged that something wasn’t quite right (as we both know our son well enough to realise that he would have very much enjoyed the experience).
I think I might stop doing this year in and year out as it’s a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.
Happy April Fools!
- Slaithwaite is pronounced either ‘Slawit’ or ‘Slathwayte’ (the latter if you’re really posh).