fool me once

the best april fools' joke ever played on me went like this.

when i was in high school, there was a missionary serving in my ward named elder craynor, who hailed from one rexburg, idaho. around the same time that elder craynor was scheduled to go home, my bestie, natalie, went out to rexburg for school.

with me so far?

at the start of the second semester, i got an e-mail from natalie. (the internet was still pretty new and i was using AOL. this i remember well.) i would never believe it, but elder craynor (first name: casey) was in her english class at ricks (now, byu-idaho)! what were the odds?!?

as the semester went on i would get little updates from natalie about elder craynor. they had become reacquainted; they went out to lunch; he asked her out on a date; they were spending a lot of time together; it was getting pretty serious. and then, they were engaged! what were the odds?!?

the one trick being that, because all this business about bumping into elder craynor had started way back in january, i didn't even notice that her little engagement e-mail came on... you guessed it... april fools' day.

and it didn't help that she had conscripted all our friends from the ward, who also knew elder craynor, to back up her story in the face of my incredulity. by the end of the day, i was resigned to the fact that it must be true. not that it would have been a bad thing, of course, but it turned out that it didn't matter either way because it wasn't true at all. what are the odds?!?

natalie came clean later that day, so i didn't live in ignorance for long, thankfully. turns out elder craynor really was in her english class, but that was where the reality ended. i had to congratulate her on a well-played and rather involved prank, but i also vowed right then and there to get natalie back and get her back good.

yeah, i'm still working on that.