The Greatest April Fool's Day Prank EVER

Today, on this, the first day of April, 2009, I would like to share with you the greatest April Fool's Day prank that has ever been played. Your foolmaster is me, and my exploits have been talked about from here to L.A. They have been rapped about by some of the world's premier hip hop artists. A painting of my greatest prank was rendered by a London artist whose name escapes me. Never mind!

I have been the mastermind of many April Fool's jokes over the years. I once convinced a friend of mine that he had been visited by aliens by making "crop circles" in the finish of his Honda with a can of paint stripper. LOLZ!

One time I replaced all the batteries in my family's open pack with dead batteries I had saved over the previous year. Wouldn't you know it, my brother needed a couple of batteries that very day! Oh, reader. You should have been there.

But I'm not here to talk about those pranks. Those pranks were merely sprinkles in the ocean compared to the joke I am about to share with you. The greatest April Fool's Prank of all time.

I was zero years old at the time. Lying in a hospital crib. The lights! They were bright beyond what you could possibly imagine. Particularly if you're blind. I don't know if you remember or not (I've found that most people do not recall their babyhood with as much accuracy as I recall mine), but being a baby is extraordinarily boring. You have little to do but lie around and think. But this can be productive, as it was for me on that fateful October night. It was then and there that I decided that I would play a little prank on my mom. Simultaneously, I would play a prank on someone else's mom.

When no one was looking, I rappelled out of my crib, crawled across the cold tiles of the floor, and climbed up into a crib that had been temporarily abandoned. Monstrously exhausted from this labor, I settled in to my new crib and fell promptly asleep, positively beaming from my own genius.

Well, as the hospital was understaffed, and most newborns look almost exactly alike, my plan went just as I'd hoped. I had baby switched myself! Neither mother was the wiser!

I was pretty pleased with the family I wound up with. They treated me well, bought me nice things. I even felt guilty once in a while when they referred to me as their first born. I wondered what my real mother and father were like. I sometimes thought about blowing the whole deal wide open, so great was my curiosity. But I remained steadfast. To blow it early would ruin the joke.

Finally, on the April Fool's Day following my 18th birthday, I let it fly. "I'm not your real son!" I exclaimed, barely able to control my laughter. "I babyswitched myself when I was zero!"

I won't lie to you, dear reader. I had some trepidation going into my revelation. I knew my parents' reaction could be bad. They had a sense of humor, but it wasn't always quite in line with my sense of humor. But, to my welcome surprise, they laughed right along with me.

"Great joke," my dad admitted, holding out his hand. I shook it with pride. "One for the history books."

My mom nodded in agreement.

"Just one thing," my dad continued, stepping back.

I sat down on the couch to bask in my own prankful glory. "What's that, 'dad'?"

"Well, you see," he said. "We knew you tried to babyswitch yourself that night. As a matter of fact, we were watching through the glass as you did it."

"Yeah, right," I said, but my smile began to falter.

"Yep," he said. "The joke is on you, I'm afraid. All this time. We are your real parents."

BAM! If I had been standing, I would have fallen down. What a twist ending. In that moment, I had to tip my hat to them.

They pulled off the greatest April Fool's Joke of all time. Kudos, Mom and Dad!