Oops. The joke is apparently on me this time. I used to be an upper-level prankster when it came to April Fool’s Day. Well, I’ve gotten busier, more mature and quite boring in the last decade and a half. Those days are behind me. Now I just resort to the casual, spur of the moment gags that are as old as sarcasm itself. Well, this year, it backfired something serious.

I decided to post on facebook early today that Jen got me pregnant. It was really my half-ass way of mocking the “holiday” tradition. Well, my sister replies to that post “Congratulations. Good to know you’re still pumping out eggs at your age.” Not particularly funny, but a harmless quip nonetheless. To this, I decided to reply on her wall “Thanks so much, Char. Hopefully there are no more complications. I’ll let you know when the shower is and you’ll the baby’s Godmother of course.”

Here’s the thing about facebook. Now I’ve put that out there without the context of the first two comments. In retrospect, that’s where I went wrong. My Nana is not on facebook, thank the lord. But her good friend is. And she is friends with my sister, but not me (on facebook). Being a drama queen and seeing blood in the water, she called my Nana to tell her the great news. And so begins the telephone game. I’m not sure what things were assumptions and which were blatantly made up and taken as fact from these assumptions, but word got out to my mother, two aunts and somehow leaked into my father’s side of the family too that Jen was pregnant and the baby may have gestational diabetes. OK, I’m making up that last part, but there were concerns about what the “complications” were and several theories were out there, as I found out when I returned from my meeting to find I had 7 messages on my voicemail.

To further aid the ridiculousness of this story, I had taken down my original post after getting several tactless replies to it. So now, no one could disprove any of this by facebook stalking me. All that was out there was my comment on my sister’s wall, and the 27 unanswered replies underneath of it from various family members and congratulatory friends. I finally had to post up that Jen was not pregnant and there thusly were no complications. At least not with a baby. There were many complications elsewhere. Mostly with my mother, who was the happiest she’d ever been in her life for 2 hours, only to learn that her son may still indeed be infertile and afraid of commitment.

So that was my failed attempt at a harmless April Fool’s joke this year. Thank you, facebook, for finally giving me an April Fool’s to remember. Looks like the joke is on me. Or is the joke on you?

Still Standing Right Here…