Family Traditions come in all shapes and sizes.  Some traditions involve special places.  Some traditions involve special foods.  Many traditions involve special people.  My family traditions involve jokes.  I come from a long line of practical jokers. My grandfather was famous (well, infamous) for placing a rubber rat in the oven, on top of a freshly baked apple pie my grandmother was cooling. The screams she let forth when opening the oven door are legend in the Sass family. Unfortunately, coming from a family full of perennial pranksters has its disadvantages too. For example, while others may be laughing their asses off, on April 1st there is no laughing the Sasses off.  In fact, at this point, on April 1st we basically do not speak. We have grown so accustomed to punking and pranking each other on that day over the years that now our family tradition is to do nothing, because we know that anything we say or do on that day will not be believed for a second. Therefore, in my family April Fools’ Day is a day of silence… Any phone call, email or text message dated April 1 is instantly suspect of being a joke, and thus promptly ignored.

THE JOKE’S ON ME

This year I decided to buck the trend and be an April Fool a few days after April 1, in order to shake things up a bit.   I had been helping my oldest son prepare his Taxes and after our TurboTax adventure it appeared he would be receiving a refund of several hundred dollars, which he considered to be a happy financial windfall.  I told him I would take care of the filing for him.  The next day I called Zach with the bad news.  “Zach,” I fibbed, “I was reviewing your tax return and I made a mistake…  You owe $1,000!”  “WHAT???? How can that be???” was the reaction I expected and received.  I could practically feel Zach’s disappointment at seeing the wind get taken out of his windfall, so I started to laugh and revealed my taxing remark as a belated APRIL FOOLS’ joke.  “Gotcha!” I gloated. Zach laughed along, relieved he was indeed still going to have his own little economic stimulus package.  We chatted a few more minutes on the phone when he told me, “Dad, I forgot to tell you. I spoke to the dealer about the part that was missing on my car and they said they would not cover it, and I have to pay $1,000 to have it installed!”  “WHAT???” I exclaimed, instantly riled up as we had recently been arguing about the dealer’s responsibility to have properly inspected the vehicle and replace a part that they should have spotted as missing before we purchased the used truck to replace a car Zach had totaled.  I was furious.  “That is ridiculous!  That is unacceptable!!!  Do you know how many vehicles we bought from this dealer over the years????  I can’t believe they would treat us this way!!!”  To which my son replied, laughing, “And I can’t believe I GOT YOU on the very same call that you got me!  April Fools, Dad!  They are replacing the part, no charge!”

Moral of the story: The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree… (and any day in April can be an April FOOL day!)

How about you and your family?  Do you have an April Fools’ tradition?  What are your other family traditions?  Please share them in the comments.

Jeff Sass is the proud dad of ZEO (Zach, 20, Ethan, 18 and Olivia, 17).  He is also a seasoned entertainment and technology exec and active social media enthusiast.  You can see more of Jeff’s writing at Sassholes! and Social Networking Rehab.

Photo Credit: © Thana Thaweeskulchai – Fotolia.com