I got a lot of mileage out of my first piece of fake human doo-doo. My mom bought it for me on April Fools’ Day back when I was in fifth grade at. She drove me to Riley’s Trick Shop, the premier magic prop and gag store of the Chicago Southwest Suburbs. We left with a bag of pranks, but the others paled in versatility. The whoopee cushion proved impractical with our kitchen chairs, and the rubber rat felt redundant compared to the rubber dookie. The detail on the dookie took the cake, though because of the way it coiled, it could be confused for a soft pretzel at a quick glance.
When we got home, I ran to the downstairs bathroom and I laid the rubber dookie down on the tile next to the toilet. Then began the exciting and excruciating wait for my father to come in from the garage. Truth be told, he probably figured something was up before entering the bathroom. I blame my giddy lack of poker face, which made all the more strange that said giddiness came from my dad’s act of walking towards the bathroom. Still, he played up the reaction with a loud and satisfying“Uh-oh!?”
No one would fault my father for faking it, though this response opens a conundrum:
In this scenario, which one of us was the fool?
My father was my intended fool, but he was not fooled. In feigning being fooled, he attempted to fool me into thinking I fooled him. Despite the failure of his feigned fooling, his reaction was satisfying enough that I didn’t care. Neither of us questioned the veracity of each other’s reactions.
Pranks are performed by the immature, but not all immaturity is the same. To live in this world today is to live under the whims of powerful elderly children who cannot see their own immaturity. Let’s banish this immaturity and find one worth nurturing.
The best and most writerly way I can describe the type of exchange my father and I had would be an example of noble immaturity: an immaturity that reinforces the lack of status quo, where roles are set aside for the sake of sharing a playground. Comparing the two immaturities described here, noble immaturity requires risk.
At some point, a human being crafted fake poop. We also hunted mammoths. Fake poop lasted longer. (Take that, mammoths.)
There’s no way we can tell exactly why fake poop was invented. I assume that the needs were similar to my own. My search wasn’t for specifically an object/symbol of poop disconnected from the smell and the full unpleasant experience. Fooling needed to be done, so a tool was invented.
Let’s take a moment and dream up our past. Maybe fake poop came about in the evolutionary era of man, back when we began crafting for the sake of crafting 30,000 years ago (source.) Our age of crafting and rituals began when we started recognizing the reality of death (a more reputable source,) so it could track that fake poop came shortly after we began reckoning with a constant unknown. To ward against darkness, a crudely whittled log was laid near where the family did their ancient business (and even if this never happened, isn’t it nice to dream up our past?) 1
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Fools’ Moon
Historically and across cultures, the fool has been the catalyst for change. When their tribe had lost reason to dance, the sacred clown persisted so that dancing would not be lost forever. The fool that serves community plants seeds in bleak times. If you feel like you would like to be one of these fools, today is the perfect day to plant seeds.
Astrologically speaking, a new moon AND the astrological new year occur tonight. The last time a new moon occurred on April Fools’ Day was 1984, and it won’t happen again until 2041. A lot can happen in 19 years. What would happen if we cultivated our conscious and ethical foolishness? A compassionate comedy of social upheaval?
April Fools’ Day celebrations don’t exist, which means celebrating today is the perfect prank. April Fools’ Day should be a day of topsy-turvy rules and carnival. The fact that so many comedians (such as myself) complain every year about bad April Fools’ jokes is a gigantic self own. Y’all, this should be our holiday!
Plant some seeds. Embrace noble immaturity. Whittle fake poop.2
There must have been a time in our early human societies where an ancient jokester used… live rounds despite, you know, ew. If our ancient jokester used live rounds and that got a huge laugh, it reflects an enviable understanding of context and a superhuman commitment to the gag.
If you can’t whittle, storebought is fine.