Happy April Fools’ Day (Observed)!

It was a pretty fun morning in Walker today. I walked into my office, set my backpack down on one of the chairs, and was somewhat startled when I turned around and saw a whole lot of tinfoil. Covering my desk. My computer. My monitor. My keyboard. My mouse. My books. My scissors. My tape dispenser. My kleenex box. My headphones. My ethernet cable. My chair. My waste basket. My notebooks/binders. Lots of assorted papers. A small bag of chips. A water bottle. A pop can. A couple empty powerade bottles. A couple mugs. An empty soft drink cup from Friday’s lunch (straw, too). A couple old paper plates. Some CDs. My weather calendar. A rubber band. The divider/wall behind my desk that I pin pictures and other things onto. My daikon (the stuffed giant Japanese radish which Josh sent me last fall). My box of pushpins. My post-it notes. Some coins (including an individually wrapped penny). When I say everything was covered and wrapped in foil, I do mean everything. I wasn’t immediately sure who did it, though I did know that Walter had to have been the one to supply a key to let them into the office. I started taking some pictures, and then saw a tinfoil “post-it” on my monitor with a note from the culprits – Caren & Amber. Talk about a great April Fools’ prank! I went to find the two pranksters and congratulate them on a job well done, and spent basically the next two hours going around Walker to find a whole bunch of the other grad students and a few professors, so they could come down to my office and admire Caren & Amber’s handiwork. (Even the meteo secretaries all came down with the departmental camera.) They said it took them an hour and a half or two hours yesterday and almost two rolls of tinfoil. Since it was raining out, anytime anybody came walking down the hall their shoes would squeak, so they got panicked quite a few times thinking I was approaching and would catch them in the act, haha. Eventually I had to unwrap everything, though, because, after all, I did have to try to get some work done. It took me half an hour to take the tinfoil off all my things, and I made the foil into a whole bunch of snowball-sized globs. Jacob & I grabbed a bunch, walked over to Caren’s office and unleashed a barrage of foil-balls while she sat at her desk. And then we went back to grab some more and do the same to Amber in her office. 🙂 Then it was time for lunch, haha. What a morning! I’ve had some good pranks pulled on me by my roommates back at Gustavus (including newspapering my door the night before they left for China, covering my old Windows computer and monitor in condoms for “virus protection,” and hiding 50-some condoms in all my stuff spring semester of senior year — including another one I found just three or four weeks ago, making three that I’ve found since I moved to Penn State — that’s the prank that just keeps on giving, haha), but this one’s right up there. I don’t know how to rank those pranks!
I was already excited for the MLB season opener, but then I found out this afternoon that the Twins-Orioles game was gonna be on ESPN2! We really don’t get to see many Twins games out here in PA, so I wasn’t gonna pass up that opportunity (at least until 24 came on, when the Jack Bauer Hour took priority on my TV). It was an exciting game too, with Justin Morneau and Torii Hunter hitting solo home runs on back-to-back pitches in the 2nd inning, leading the way to a 7-4 victory. Twins win! Twins win! I know it’s only one game out of 162, but it’s always nice to win the season opener. 🙂