I’ve already received 16 Happy Birthday greetings on my Facebook page this morning but I wonder if any of my friends ever stopped to think that April 1st might not actually be my birthday.
This is not my first April Fool’s Day joke on this site but it is a more personal one. When I was born, my dad’s mom told my parents, with great urgency, that if they didn’t legally change my birthdate, her little grandchild would go through much agony growing up, as people made fun of him every April 1st. My folks didn’t go along with her idea!
I don’t recall much about any verbal ‘beatings’ I had on this particular day of the year and, although I’m sure some of Grandma’s concerns were valid, what I do remember is how I turned my birthdate into the best one of all 365. Here’s how it’s looked more times than I can count.
“Good to meet you”, or something similar, someone would say. From there, the conversation would touch on things like, where do you live, what type of work do you do, what schools did you attend, and, of course my favorite, when were you born?
“April 1st” I’d always say and then just sort of look at them with that ‘are you really going to think I’m telling the truth’ look. Their response was almost always verbal disbelief. “No way” or “You’re kidding” or a number of other responses would spurt forth from their mouth.
It would take me a while of explanation but almost always, they would eventually keel over to my side and say, “Wow, that’s really amazing”…which was my queue for the great finish.
“Of course”, I would say, using my most ‘is this really true’ tone of voice, “if it wasn’t April 1st and people believed it was, wouldn’t that be the best April Fool’s Day joke ever?”
The varied looks of surprise, doubt, wonderment, and many more were priceless to me but I could always expect a similar answer, which gave me one more opportunity to spin their minds around.
After digesting what I’d said, I’d get that look of ‘am I falling off the truth into a batch of fiction’ and they’d say, “So you mean you weren’t born on April 1st?”
With that statement, would come my final bit of communication…a quizzical look with absolutely no acknowledgement one way or the other about their question. Basically, I left them hanging, just as I’m doing to you right now!
