Many years ago, while I was working at Tyndale House Publishers as their senior editor for books, one of my author’s titles released in late March. A few days later, on April Fool’s Day, inspiration hit. Being the serious-minded, somber person that I am, I sent an email. It was addressed to one Mr. James Watkins, whom many of you know is a humor writer, and who loves to tease others–and who has teased me mercilessly from the day we met. The email said something along these lines (alas, I can’t remember the exact wording):
“Hey Jim, it’s Karen. I’ve just received word about something regarding your wonderful new book for teens. I’m SO sorry to have to tell you that an entire signature was printed upside down. Yes, UPSIDE DOWN. Please don’t worry, though. We’ve contacted all the retailers who’ve received the books and asked them to shred them. And we’ll get new books out as soon as we can, though it may not happen for a few weeks. Or months. It all depends on the printing schedules. But sales and marketing have both said they don’t expect the book to sell many copies, so we don’t think the impact will be too damaging. Again, I’m just so sorry.”
As you can imagine, Jim called me, frantic, sputtering—at both the situation and the opinion from sales and marketing. I listened for a few minutes, then said, “Jim.”
“And furthermore, how can you be so calm—?”
“Jim.”
“I just…I…”
“Jim!”
“What?”
“April Fool’s!”
Stunned silence followed my words…and then uproarious laughter. From Jim. From me. It was–dare I say it?–perfection.
Well, a few days later, I received a call from the Tyndale operator.
Operator: “Karen, I have a call on hold for you.”
Me: “Okay, put it through.”
Operator: “It’s a police detective.”
That stopped me. “A what?”
“A policeman.”
Well, that could be cool. Did he want to write a boo–?
“Karen, he says there’s been a suicide…and you’ve been implicated in it somehow.”
Whaaaat?? I can’t even begin to describe the emotions washing over me. I drew in a deep breath. “I guess you’d better put him through.”
A man’s voice, all official business, barked at me. “Karen Ball?”
“Yes.”
“This is detective Able Wilson from Noble County, Indiana. We have an apparent suicide here.”
My pulse was hitting triple time. I was seeing myself in an orange jumpsuit. Talking to my family from behind a thick plexiglass wall. “Yes?”
“Apparently he’s a writer. He was found early this morning, deceased, and in his hand he was clutching an email from you about a book—”
Sudden understanding—and soul-deep relief—slammed into me. “Jim Watkins! Is this you?”
The deep laughter on the other end told me I had–in Jim’s inimitable “I will never be outdone” style–been had. Royally.
So, in honor of April Fool’s Day, I just want to say to dear ol’ Jim…
I bow to the master. Oh, and one more thing:
Watch your back. Some day, I’m gonna get even.
Now all of you, get out there and have some fun!
It Really Is Like Riding A Bike
It’s been an honor–and a real hoot–working with you. No kidding. Really!
You did that to Jim?! Priceless! And it couldn’t have been sprung on a nicer guy. Of course, I’m not surprised he got even. 😉
That is absolutely hysterical!!! I love a good prank! We’re the family that toilet papers our friends yard after they’ve gone to sleep on Halloween night. We once spread green jello (slime) over their front sidewalk which required a power washer to remove, and the joke was on us. Anticipating revenge sometime after midnight, we man the front windows until we can’t keep our eyes open any longer. But they were smarter than us last year. They set their alarm for 5 am and decorated our yard just before we woke up! There’s always next year. Did somebody say April Fool’s Day? Hmmmm…
Wow, you have a scary side to you, Karen. 😉 I loved reading the prank you and James Watkins pulled on each other. I’m not creative in that way. At. All.
So, I’ll read and enjoy what others have accomplished. 🙂
ROTFL, thanks for starting my day with such a great laugh. I take myself way too seriously–and in this day and age, we need a daily dose of laughter.
Priceless!
I love it, Karen! I write a weekly family update keeping our kids abreast of the home activities, and one April Fool’s Day I sent out one about a big explosion in the park opposite us. Our eldest called to see about coming up – none of them expected the joke! Now they’re armed; I haven’t been able to fool them twice.
Wow you guys don’t play easy. That is the problem with those April Fool’s pranks…what goes around….
Having now met James at the conference I can see it happening as you wrote. LOL.
I have one prankster daughter we never trust so when we saw the caller ID my husband answered, “I don’t believe any thing you say.”
But she has resorted to getting the grandkid involved. My 7 year-old grandson was on the line and told us there was a mountain lion in their compost heap in Flagstaff. That wasn’t far fetched at all but having already said it, we couldn’t play along so easily. But he still laughed and when I told him that Grampa showed me the new dust buster by getting me from behind and making me jump, he was hysterical.
Wish we had a “like” button for blog posts! Too funny.
Those two pranks are ones for the book. Cool and understood friendship like yours and Jim’s make for the best horrifying, heart pounding, I may lose my mind type, pranks. I’m grateful for those type of people in my life too 🙂
I had an April Fools-style writing experience many years ago. I had co-authored a book, and shortly after it came out, my co-author and I received a personal letter signed by Chuck Colson (which of course I still have in my files).
Apparently Chuck had read the book and loved it. So much so that he told us he was going to nominate us for a Templeton Prize. The Templeton Prize is awarded annually to a living person who has “made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.”
Needless to say, we felt immensely honored. But what really got our attention is that the Templeton Prize is a monetary award of £1.1 MILLION! That’s $1,631,201 in 2014 dollars!
Can you imagine? Here we were, two brand new and totally unknown authors, and not only were we receiving praise from perhaps the most well-known Evangelical of his time (with the exception of Billy Graham), but we also stood a pretty strong chance of hitting the lottery!
That night I went to bed thinking about all the wonderful things I would do with that kind of money.
Then the next day another letter arrived—this one from Gordon Loux, Chuck Colson’s number-two guy at the time. Gordon’s letter also told us what a wonderful book we had written. But then, alas, he regretfully said he needed to apologiz on behalf of Mr. Colson. You see, he explained, it turns out that Mr. Colson was on the Board of the Templeton Prize, and when he had asked Gordon to submit our names for consideration, Gordon had to remind him that as a Board member, he was precluded from making nominations.
And so it is with April Fools jokes. You either hit a low low, as Karen’s stories relate, or you hit a high high, as mine does. Either way, at the end of it all, you stand sheepishly in disbelief that you’ve been had when someone cries, “April Fools!”