I generly try not to be superstitious, but..... Well let's just say I have reason to be a little nervous about April 1st.
I was 7 or 8 years old, a fine, warm April 1st afternoon; shirt-sleave warm. My Mom and I were walking up the neighbor street, when it started to cloud over a bit, a chil breeze whispered by, and large, white, fluffy snowflakes began to drift gracefully earthward. Needly to say, we stood there dumbfounded. Then, almost as quickly as it had started, it ended. It warmed up and cleared up. The whole thing lasted maybe 10 minutes. The only sign left that it had even snowed were glistening splotches of wet all over.
I was 27-28 years old, working as a ride-operator at the Seattle Fun Forest. A co-worker and I were getting the Antique Cars ready for the day. It was a decent April 1st morning, about 10am. We had uncovered the cars, unchained them, turned on the power and pushed the first car onto the electrified part of the track. We waited about two minutes, then pushed the next car onto the track. We had just pushed the sixth car up, when there was a sharp retort, followed by a KA-BOOM! followed by smoke coming out from under the fifth car and a rather nice fireworks display. We both said "What the fuck!" Then she grabbed the fire extinguisher and ran to put out the sparks. Meanwhile, I hit the panic button (literally) and yanked the plug. I looked skyward and said "Happy April fools to You, too",then calmly reported to my superviser, on the hand-held, that the ride blew up. We didn't even flinch with his squawk of "What!" It didn't take long for him to get to our ride. He stood there staring at us with a rueful expression. We stood there looking back; still calmly. He shook his head and said, "I should've known. ok, who was the idiot that scheduled you to together?" We sniggered and she replied, "You did, Sir." He closed his eyes, sighed and whispered "oh". (Ok, I'll admit that my coworker and I had an off-the-wall rep when we worked together. But that's another set of stories for another time. I promise.)She was sent to another ride while I got voluntered (lucky me) to tell whiney little kids that the ride was broken. *uuugggghhhh*
Ok, you're probably seeing that there is quite a span of time between these incidences. Yes, I agree; there is. About 20 years. I know, sooo...?
I am now 48 and it's April 1st.I start my work week, my 'Monday', on the last two hours of this day. Not only that, it is the first night of the full moon. It has been 20 years. Nothing happened last year or nothing catastrophic I should say. So, don't you think I have the right to be a little nervous? (There is also the possibilty of the last two hours could give more of an impetus to the full moon effect, too.)
