I’m not a big April Fool’s Day kind of guy. Never have been. I tend to think of jokes that prey on and highlight the gullibility and credulity of others to be just about the lowest rung on the humor evolutionary ladder. Perhaps this is because I myself am gullible and credulous, and always seem to end up the butt of these kinds of jokes.

Rather than turn my trauma back on my oppressors by stabbing them in the face with a ball-point pen, or turning it outward by visiting similar offenses upon others, I choose instead to break the vicious cycle and refuse to participate. The last practical joke I pulled was on January 1, 2000, when—with my boss’ blessing—I replaced fungi.com’s Home page with this (and boy, did we get some nasty email as a result).

Actually, mention of Paul is rather timely in this case, because the humor I intend to pass on comes straight from him. Folks who know me are aware that I spend a fair amount of time kvetching about my boss. He is impulsive. He is inordinately fond of buzzwords (particularly technical buzzwords) and uses them incessantly and often improperly. He is a walking example of the dangers of multitasking. But for all that, I hold him in very high regard. For one thing, he is a genius, a real mad scientist. He is a visionary. And he really does want his company to do well by doing good. Striving for something more significant than “enhancing shareholder value” is a great reason to get up and go to work every day. Also being able to work in my pajamas. 😉

His sense of humor is another of his many endearing qualities. Case in point: Paul and his wife take walks in their rural neighborhood practically every day, and have taken to collecting roadside trash as they go along. They have recently been spending a lot of time cleaning up at what is obviously a popular hangout, where there exists a perpetually-replenished cairn of empty Rolling Rock Beer bottles. No matter how many times the two of them clean this site, they return to find it freshly crappified.

Yesterday Paul instructed me to produce three outdoor-quality aluminum signs, which he plans to seed around the aforementioned hangout. We dickered over the wording for a bit, ultimately coming up with this:

This more than makes up for every time he uses the term “Home page” when he really means “Web site”. 😀