My Nana Didn’t Raise No Fool!
Before she passed away, my grandmother would send me a piece of fake gum in the mail every year for April Fools Day. When my dad was in elementary school, apparently on at least one occasion she slipped a cardboard chocolate bar in his school lunch.
Ha! Oh how I wish I could have been at that lunch table.
So here’s a little April Fools ritual I’ve honed over the years, inspired
by the playful antics of my dearly departed Sophia Petrillo-esque grandmother, Ann Bailer. May it bring you as much joy as it has brought me, and as I know it brought her while she was alive.
1. Purchase a pack of Juicy Fruit gum - no, not Stride - and unwrap it at one end.
2. Gently slide each of the individual foil-wrapped sticks from the
pack. Be sure not to remove the small white paper bands which hold
each stick in its place. Those must remain fully intact inside the
pack.
3. Carefully unfold each foil wrapper just enough to remove the stick of gum within.
4. Trace the outlines of however many sticks of gum are in the pack
onto the thin gray cardboard backing from a legal pad or some other
similarly colored, weighted, and textured paper stock.
5. Cut the cardboard along the outlines, ideally with a paper-cutter.
Just to be safe, err on the side of cutting the pieces just a hair
smaller than the originals.
6. Wrap each cardboard stick in one of the foil wrappers.
7. Gently slide each wrapped cardboard stick back into the pack. Be
careful to get each one inside one of the white paper bands. This can
be tricky, but just be patient. Also make sure that the folds in the wrappers are
all facing the same way as you reinsert them into the pack. This is crucial to selling the prank.
8. Offer your friends (and, of course, your enemies) a piece of "gum".
Note: It’s a good idea to have some real gum stashed in another pocket to give your friends (screw your enemies!) as a reward for being a good sport. Also, for best results, try pulling this prank in a dark place like a
movie theater or a nightclub. It actually doesn’t matter though,
because it will quickly become apparent that some people will put
anything in their mouths.
And there you have it. I have now passed this knowledge on to you, my faithful readers. If
next April Fools Day rolls around and you happen to remember this, try
it out and let me know how it goes. If you don’t remember, well, let’s
just say I hope to run into you in a dark place so I can give you something to chew on.
Wait, that TOTALLY came out wrong.
