April’s Fool

In Italy, they call “April Fool’s Day” — “April’s Fish” (”pesce d’Aprile”). The children guess which pocket or hand “the fish” is in and the idea is to trick them or give them a piece of candy if they’re right.

One thing we’ve learned is that Italians are serious about their practical jokes. They enjoy doing a lot of them. The newspapers will announce (& include photos) of fairs or markets happening in cities that won’t really be happening. Their “candid camera” is pretty fierce too. Sometimes, the more tears they can get somebody to shed, the funnier they think it is.

My secretary dropped me a one-line email announcing that her resignation was on my desk in capital letters. I didn’t sniff the fish. She had earlier cleaned my desk to spick & span so that I would tear it up again. About 3 hours later, a follow-up email came with the fish in it.

She said she was so nervous that it wouldn’t work and would backfire. She also said, “I know how you hate emails where people unload serious things.” (I do. Email is not a medium for weightier matters of the spiritual life and Body of Christ. Matters of importance should be handled in basic, caring Christian community.) She got me good.

So, I replied & accepted her resignation. (fish)

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>