Hey, Fools!
…APRIL Fools, that is. And who hasn’t been fooled good at some point or another? We all know WE have at Everything Summer Camp—and I mean, literally, HERE at Everything Summer Camp. With a number of pranksters in the office and an even greater number of those seeking revenge, April Firsts around here seem to escalate every year. Allow me to walk you down a few blocks of memory lane…
For some people, pranks are just part of their personality. For them, it is a must-scratch itch—an unrelenting urge that courses through them like the blood through their veins.
Enter: Matthew Stephen DeMuth—Sales Manager and natural born-prankster.
Looking to cause some fuss one spring, Matt downloaded a Prank Dialer app for his phone. Using this app, Matt was able to make it appear as though people from his phone’s list of Contacts were calling one another. He had Sara call Mark and Mark call Ed, then Ed call Ryan and Ryan call…well, you get the picture.
This prank spanned quite a bit longer than just April First. Matt even went through the trouble of including himself in the prank dials to elude suspicion.
But, despite his efforts, being the desperate pranker that he is, people started to suspect Matt anyway which forced him to take it even further. Having wisely excluded Brian from any of the prank calls, Matt was in a position to frame the mild-mannered Operations Manager. Unfortunately for Matt, nobody bought it.
And, double-unfortunately for Matt, people hadn’t forgotten about his tricks one year later. Taking a note from the office pranks between Jim and Dwight in the hit show, ‘The Office’, Mark and Sara worked together to obtain Matt’s phone and toss it above the ceiling tiles. Then, as Jim did in the show, Mark and Sara proceeded to call Matt’s phone…frequently, which surely drove the much-deserving DeMuth quite crazy. 
In other years, Ed—the president of Everything Summer Camp—has dirtied his hands with the best of them in April Fools past. In fact, he’s become rather notorious around the office, actually, for his diabolical pranks and clever deceit. Several years before Matt pulled one over on everyone with his Prank Dialer app, Ed got everybody all at once as well.
Having installed fake security cameras in the break room, Ed created a cacophonous rise out of everybody at lunchtime when they saw the cameras and expressed their unfavorable opinions. The prank was pretty much forced to be revealed very quickly before a mob started.
Ed topped himself in a following year when he disclosed to everybody that the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) released a new law concerning proximity safety. He then explained that OSHA deems our trunk factory to operate too close to the adjoining offices and all office employees must now wear mandatory safety goggles.
You can imagine how stupid everybody with a desk job felt, wearing safety goggles at the computer and taking customer phone calls. Eventually, Ed couldn’t keep it together and put an end to his own prank.
So, as you can see, with our track record around THIS office, today is a day to watch our backs and tread lightly. I recommend the same approach for all of you living or working with prank-prone people. And, as always, thanks for reading.
- John