Pregnant by Postcard

I think my favorite April Fool’s prank involved a postcard.  You may wonder what fun could possibly come from a simple postcard…let me tell you a story

Emily and I met our first day of college.  We knew each other but didn’t hang out much the first semester.  By the end of the second semester though, we decided we ought to start dating.  We hung around all the time and were great friends even before we started dating.  We wrote letters steady through the first summer and talked on the phone quite a bit.  I bet we wrote a letter 4-5 days each week.  We were a bit of a high point for profitability in the post office.  Most times our writing was silly stuff but it kept us going very well through the long summers.  I think it was probably cooler writing letters and courting long-distance than it would be nowadays.  Phone calls were still expensive and no one had computers so we communicated because it was worth it.

During spring break of our sophomore year, we decided to play a prank on my mom.  She worked downtown (Tionesta, my hometown with a population of around 600) so got the mail every day at the post office.  My parents got a PO box after the 900th time the mail box at the house was destroyed by the snow plows.  It was a prefect part of my plan!

Since human nature requires that anyone who touches a postcard reads the message, we decided to exploit the fact that my mom would in fact touch the post card when she picked it up.  As a bonus, since the town was so small, we were certain that the postal workers would also read the post card which would add to the fun.

So, Emily and I worked it out and on the fateful day, my mom called the house where I was waiting.  ”We need to talk.  Come down town right now.”  The trap was playing out perfectly.  You see, Emily wrote a postcard informing me she was pregnant.  ”What are we going to do?”, she lamented.  Of course, she was not even partially pregnant.

Mom confronted me, I confronted her (afterall, it was addressed to me, not her) and we eventually had a great laugh over the whole thing.  So, while I do not ever condone pulling the “I’m pregnant” trick on your significant other, it is pretty funny if you pull the trick on folks once removed.  Although, such a trick may be harmful to your health!