Listening to The Bob and Tom Show on the 'net. Thinking about April Fool's Day. Thinking about the time when the kids were young, and we made the first of April "Get Dad Day." Tyff was 12, or 13, and begining to blossom into her own person. We would trade "put-downs," pranks, and other "fun family things, all of the time. Tyff kept trying to "get" me, but I usually managed to turn the joke back on her, and I watched her get frustrated, trying to figure out a way to focus a joke on me. It was '87, or '88, when she finally pulled it off.
OK, she "got" me, it was funny, we all laughed, but she was so proud of herself, she began to try more often. Somewhere, along the line, her attempts to "get Dad" crossed from funny to disrespectful, and we had a talk about limits. She asked when it would be appropriate, and I said, April 1st. Hence, April Fool's Day became Get Dad Day for my family. We've had a lot of fun with it, over the years, and Tyff's gotten me more than once. Mary, too.
Once, when living on Federal Blvd, in San Diego, Mary left me a note on the door. I read about what amounted to a really bad day, little things that happen all the time. As it went on, it got worse, and worse, and then it went just a bit too far. I began to realize that it was a gag, probably right after my first stroke (hey, who knows? They couldn't tell me when the first one had been...).
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