Poisson d'avril!

Happy April Fools! Yes, I am indeed aware that today is the day after April Fools, but hey, after a day of mischievious French activity (Not that kind of mischievious French activity! Goodness, get your minds out of the gutter, guys) I was too exhausted to post yesterday. So, here you have it, a sweet little excerpt of French April Fools.

As some of you may already know, April Fools in France is called "Poisson d'avril" which directly translates to "April Fish", not April Fools! But why fish? Well, although the first of April is filled with hilarious pranks, there is one in particular that takes the cake. In this French Tradition, children (and "children at heart" aka everyone) tries to tape paper fish to eachother's backs without them noticing! If you don't notice the presence of a flippity-floppity friend on your back, you walk around like an idiot with a fish hanging off your shirt! Obviously, it would be social humiliation (not! But it was fun all the same!) So basically for an entire day our entire school was walking around and paranoidly checking our backs...

During the first two hours, my friend Mathilde and I had free periods, so we spent our time wisely - CRAFTING A BAZILLION PAPER FISH!!

Pay no attention to my derange, half-closed eyes...

I'm basically the Leonardo Davinci of paper fish...

Not surprisingly, Mathilde was the first to subject me to the paper-fish-disgrace. Needless to say I was mortified ;) Fine, go ahead and judge my use of emoticons. I don't care.

Being fabulous as my school is, Poisson d'avril did not stop there! Our cafeteria (which I swear is gormet) treated us to a desert called "Poisson du Chocolat" which translates to "Chocolate Fish".
Upon seeing the sign, I was a bit disgusted. Chocolate dipped fish? No thanks! But it turns out that the French (unlike me) are sane people, and would never create such a travesty of a desert, "Poisson du Chocolat" is actually a fish-shaped pastry filled with chocolate - yum!

Then, there came the fooling! The first (and only successful) "fishing" that I commited was on my friend Pauline. In Economy, I seated myself behind her and descreetly secured one of my fish-masterpieces to her coat - MWAHAHAHA! It took her until lunch to discover the hanger-on and man did everyone have some explaining to do! She carefully interrogated everyone who sat in her general proximity in the last 2 hours, but she could not find the culprit. I, meanwhile, was cackling fiendishly in the corner until finally I decided to tell her it was me. Being the sweetie-pie that she is however, she did not descend in full wrath (which, knowing her teddy bear-like personality, probably consists of daisy grenades and rainbow vexes). Whew!

But the finale of Poisson d'avril was the real showstopper. For the entire day, not a single non-fish related joke had been played, and I must admit I was a bit confudled (Yes, this is a mix of the words confused and befudled. Tell your friends. Get this beautiful word in the dictionary). I mean, what is the first of April without a good gut-wrenching gag? Well, the bus ride home would solve that problem...

While on the bus, one of my friends was acting a bit strange. While he is usually a very energetic guy, he was strangely quite. Finally, Pauline asked him what was going on. After walking around the topic for a bit, he finally teared up and told us that he had gotten a girl "Mode" pregnant. Everyone was shocked. But after about a minute of silence, Pauline started laughing. Other people chuckled nervously and Pauline told him to stop fooling us! It was Poisson d'avril, wasn't it? But he did not laugh. Instead, he looked close to tears and walked to the back of the bus. We were mortified! Finally, his close friend went to talk to him, positive that it was a joke. But when he came back, he sullenly said it was true, no joke. In the next ten minutes or so, rumors started to fly in our friend group. "Is she sure?" "Yeah, she told me she took a test! Positive" "I heard she wants to keep it." "Mon Dieu!" It was just getting real when the 'father-to-be' was about to get off the bus. Grinning broadly, he announced that it was Poisson d'avril! His friend who had confirmed the gag's 'truity' also came forward and laughingly admitted his spur-of-the-moment participation in the hoax.

Psh. Obviously I knew.... *hyperventilates inwardly*

While it was a mortifyingly scary joke, I must admit that afterwards it was hilariously funny. What made it hysterical is the fact that "Mode" isn't even a real girl, she was completely fiction! Using a fictional girl in this plot was a good move, because seriously, how furious would you be if some guy pretended to get you pregnant for April Fools? Without your approval? I personally would see some castrating in his future. What's also really funny is that since "Mode" is fictional, that means that all the people attesting to her positive fertility test and her wishes to keep the baby were completely lying - even though they weren't in on the joke! Gossiping at it's best, eh?

But hey, on a more serious note, this is a really good example of what teens are going through today. If this hadn't been a joke, then my friend and "Mode" would be pregnant at only 17 years old. That would be destructive, for their lives and the baby's life. So, hey, public service announcement: be safe! Fortunately for "Mode", her pregnancy is fictional, but for non-fiction characters like us getting knocked up in high school would NOT be good. So, yeah. Um, use protection. Go get some gear at Planned Parenthood or something. Wow. That got real awkward real fast... But hey, I can already feel us bonding. That's what awkward situations do you know, make you bond with each other... We should do this more often, this bonding thing. No, wait, don't go! I promise I will never have "the talk" with you again!