1. Hussein's Supplies
Former Iraqi dictator was terrible, blood thirsty, but that didn't prevent him from trying to offer his people a good laugh every year on April Fool's Day. On 1st of April, 1998 the official newspaper, owned by dictator's son Udday, announced the public that US President Bill Clinton had decided to lift penalties against Iraq, only to admit later that it was just a joke. One can easily imagine the knee slapping guffaws when people realized how they had been fooled. The chuckles continued one year later when Udday mischeviously informed that the monthly food rations will be supplemented to include free fruits, Coca Cola, and chocolate. Once more, just a joke. This time, the dictator appear to exhaust his practical jokes, because in 2000 he recycled the sanction lifting gag, and one year later launched out the ration supplement crowd pleaser again. The insistence with which the same joke was repeated several years had an almost surreal quality to it. In fact, it almost makes one sympathize with Saudi Arabia's chief cleric, the Great Mufti Sheikh Abdul Azziz bin Abdulah Al Sheikh, who in 2001 stated that the celebration of April Fool's Day should be forbidden altogether. We don't know if the Great Mufti had his neighbor's hijinks in mind when he decreed the ban.2. Freeing The Prisoners
Imagine hearing that your brother or father who has been held in a filthy Russian prison for years is finally going to be released. You make the long trip to the horrid penitentiary and wait outside the prison gates, longing desperately for the moment you'll reunite with your loved one, only to hear... 'April Fools! No one's being freed!' Believe it or not this already happened to 60 families in April 2000 who have been informed that their loved ones will be released from the Vladivostok prison in Russia. They made the long trip to the penitentiary, only to learn that the paper had played an April Fool's joke on them. The authorities later published an apology.
3. The fake Deadline
Glenn Howlet's friends at London city hall believed they had dreamed up a marvelous gag. They dispatched a memo telling him that the really big important statement he was working on will be due early, in just two weeks. The tip off was that the memo was dated April first. :))) . Except Glenn didn't realize it was a bad joke. He received the memo while he was on vacation and right away cut his vacation short and called the office to tell his co-workers to start getting the job done. But as he stared the new deadline he worked himself up into an increasing state of panic, until soon he began to get heart palpitations. Finally he fell sick from the stress and was forced to take medical leave. As he was recovering in the hospital he figured out it just wasn't worth risking his health condition to finish the statement, so he applied for early retirement. At this point someone explained him the early deadline was just an innocent joke. He replied by pressing charges for damages. The first consequence of his lawsuit, was that London city hall banned employees from pulling any more pranks.
1 comments:
Where are the other seven entries? You know, the ones that were on the list that you stole this from?
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