My Best April Fools Day Joke Ever!

It had been a while since I’d played a good April Fools joke on anyone. Only three past April Fool’s jokes even come to mind–one time I went into my two sisters’ bedrooms and turned everything upside down, once I turned the water main off at my college dorm house for the day, and once I pretended like I got my eye poked out by a flying piece of plastic in front of my mother.

The first joke on my sisters passed uneventfully. I’m not even sure if they noticed everything was upside down in their bedrooms.

The second event was blamed on frozen pipes, except when the water miraculously came back on in the middle of the day two guys jumped in the showers and the water miraculously went off again. They didn’t know I was playing with the main water valve, which was located in my bedroom.

The third event seemed like a great idea at the time, but it was doomed to end badly. Without going into detail, my mother thought she witnessed me impale my eyeball with a flying shard of sharp plastic. Once she found out I wasn’t really hurt, the trouble began…and I haven’t played an April Fools Day joke since.

But then the opportunity arose to play a joke on my family again–this time sanctioned by my wife (who usually thinks things through to the end and, thus, once I get her approval I’m more than happy to go ahead with anything). In fact, I am willing to blame this entire fiasco on Kaylee. That’s right–not only did she not try to stop me, but it was her hair cutting skills, or lack thereof, that made the whole thing possible in the first place.

It was a normal haircut until…

I’ve had my hair cut very short for the better part of 3 years and things were going fine till March 31st. It was that fateful night that we decided to cut my hair but couldn’t find our clipper guards.

The clipper guards, which attach to the hair clipper to help you cut your hair to a uniform length, were in a Tupperware container that could not be located. We searched the house for some time but the container could not be found.

We decided to do something we had tried earlier in marriage called the “Jarom holds his head real still and Kaylee tries clipping his hair to a uniform length using the steadiness of her hand” approach. This did not work.

I then told Kaylee that, if there were really no other options, she had my permission to shave my hair using just the longest adjustable length on the clippers.

If we couldn’t cut my hair uniformly at 1 inch we could do it at 1/16 of an inch, wait a month, and viola! 1-inch hair!

And so it began…

This is when things started happening. Kaylee began shaving my hair off. Observing her first swipe with the clippers, she informed me that my hair was going to be “really, really short”.

I told her I was planning on joining the skinheads anyways.

She told me she might as well give me a mohawk and we could take some pictures.

I told her if she dared me to do it, I’d wear the mohawk to lunch with my sister and cousins the next day.

She double-dog dared me.

Somewhere in there we decided I’d also wear an earring. That is how I came to show up to the Noodles Co. restaurant looking like this:

Before arriving at the restaurant, Kaylee and I discussed what the reasoning behind my appearance should be. I had an earring, jeans with holes in the knees, and a black Alcatraz T-shirt (about the toughest looking piece of clothing I own, courtesy of my cousin Austin).

The ensemble was pretty good, but what would I say to give it creditability?

Some discarded back-stories were:

• This was a desperate attempt to regain my youth as I slid inevitably into my 30’s.
  
• Kaylee did it to me in my sleep.
  
• Kaylee made me do it–she goes for the “bad boy” types.
  
• The look goes well with my new tattoo.
  
• I didn’t rebel as a teenager, and I’ve always regretted that.
  
• What mohawk? What are you talking about?
  

We finally settled on:

• Don’t say much at all, and try not to laugh.
  

Going out in public

And so we went out to meet my family for lunch.

The “Don’t say much at all, and try not to laugh” approach worked very well. Except for Kaylee smiling a lot, everyone seemed to take me seriously when I said it was a new style I was trying out and I kind of liked it. I knew from practicing in the mirror that I had a good “serious” face.

Brad, my brother-in-law, met me first. When I wasn’t looking he phoned ahead to my sister and cousins to warn them I had done something to my hair.

Being somewhat warned, they didn’t give me the reaction I was looking for when they first saw me. My sister Cara and my cousins Autumn and Kristin all looked composed and non-expressive.

I had to take what pleasure I could from Josh’s reaction. Josh is the two year old. He looked concerned.

For the next 20 minutes I remained composed and strait-faced. The following are snippets of our conversation:

Me: What do you think of my new look?
Cara: Uhhhhhh…
Me: You don’t like it? Kaylee likes it!
Cara: She does?
Me: She’s the one who did it to me. You’re saying you don’t like it?
Cara: It’s just…it isn’t “you”.

Me: I’m trying it out for a while.
Brad: Are you serious?
Me: You don’t seem to like it.
Brad: Well bro…if you’re okay with it, then I’m okay with it.

Autumn: I don’t like it.

Me: What do you think?
Kristin: Do you want the truth?
Me: No. Lie to me.
Kristin: I love it. I think it looks great.

I came clean as people were getting up to leave. I confessed it was a joke and that I was going to shave it off when I got home. Cara in particular looked relieved.

To my amazement, the thought “Jarom is playing an April Fools Day joke on us” had not crossed their minds that whole time. We took some pictures, and the picture below is titled “The faces they were making on the inside when they first saw Jarom’s hair.”

This shot greatly satisfied my juvenile need for attention.

Just when I thought it was over

The story would end here, I thought, but to my surprise my mother called me not long afterwards.

She had heard distressing news from my Aunt Jill (who coincidentally is Kristin’s mother). She had heard I had a mohawk and a pierced ear.

I assured her it was an April Fools joke, but before the conversation ended I got a call from my Aunt Gail who had heard I had a mohawk and a pierced ear.

I also assured her it was an April Fools joke, at which point my cousin Cathi called on the other line.

I didn’t get much into assuring her it was an April Fools joke before my Uncle Kent called.

It was at about this point that I realized that it was still April Fools Day, and I had spent the last half hour on the phone telling the truth when I could have been perpetuating rumors.

So I told my Uncle Kent, my grandparents, my sister Cami, and my father that I did indeed have a mohawk and a pierced ear. Furthermore I was happy with the results and might keep it for a while.

It gets chopped

We finally arrived home at the end of an eventful day, and it was time to say goodbye to the mohawk.

My transition to skinhead is now complete, and we still haven’t found the clipper attachments.

Both of us seem to remember seeing the Tupperware container someplace in the last couple months, and both of us thought it was an odd place to have it and that we should move it back to where it belongs before we needed it and couldn’t find it.

Neither of us could remember where we saw it though, and its whereabouts remain a mystery.

Other pictures:



“How I Look Now” (post April Fools Day joke)

“Kristin Culbertson and Jarom ‘The Rock’ Adair”

“Two Tough People”

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