My Craziest and Funniest April Fool's Experience

I'm not much of a holiday person. The holidays I dislike most are those that require doing strange things, like dressing up and trick or treating on Halloween. But, the holiday that I most detest is that strange one called April Fool's Day. I mean, grownups going around trying play silly tricks on each other is just about the dumbest thing I can think of. So, I try to avoid being around people on April 1.

Of course, that's not always possible, and it's not always an un-enjoyable experience. April Fool's Day several years ago comes to mind.

But, I thought it was to be a class on foreign affairs . . .

My calendar showed me speaking to a civic group about foreign affairs. Now, this was something I did frequently, and whenever my secretary put such an event on my schedule, I rarely questioned it, other than to get directions to the venue if it was a place that I'd never been to before. In this particular case, I'd spoken to this group on one or two other occasions, so I just made a mental note of it and went about my business. Silly me, I should have looked more closely at the calendar; I would have noticed that the date of my speech was April 1.

This particular group was a local women's civic group that, in addition to purely local domestic concerns, had an interest in foreign relations, so I was a popular speaker. I usually enjoyed talking to them because they asked good, probing questions, and seemed to have a real interest in the topics about which I spoke. I decided on this occasion to give them a real treat. As a former military officer, turned diplomat, I decided I would talk about civil-military relations and their impact on foreign affairs. I don't normally use visual aids during my talks, other than a flip chart that I occasionally write on, but for this presentation, I decided to really graphically illustrate the subject. So, I wore one of my old military uniforms, complete with all my ribbons, medals and combat patches.

On April 1, at the appointed hour, I showed up at the headquarters of the group, all decked out in my military regalia, and ready to really impress the audience. I knew my way to the auditorium, so I proceeded directly there, and entered through the back, so I could go directly to the podium.

It's maternity, not military, you fool

When I entered the large room, which was filled, I got the shock of my life; and so did the group. They were conducting a natural childbirth class, complete with posters, and with over a dozen women lying on the floor of the auditorium, while a dozen others acted as their coaches. When I strutted in, wearing my decidedly martial outfit, it caused quite a stir; especially as they had not been expecting me.

All's well that ends well, isn't it?

Now, you're probably thinking at this point, what's so funny about all this? Well, these women were quick thinkers. Since I was there, and in natural childbirth, it's usually the husband who assists, not another woman, they decided that I might as well become part of the program. So, they insisted I take off my tunic and move from woman to woman, playing the role of the befuddled husband. That wasn't too hard to pull off - at that point, I was completely befuddled. By the time I'd role-played with about half of them, I'd started getting the hang of it, and actually found myself enjoying it. They caught on to the fact that my secretary had pulled an April Fool's joke on me before I did, but by the time I'd figured it out, I was having too much fun to be angry with her.

Of course, I still don't like April Fool's Day.