April Fooled Me

When I was in high-school, I befriended three boys on a bus ride to a youth-group summer camp. They entertained me with descriptions of when they had fooled people by telling them far-fetched stories.

"The trick is to have three people tell them together," one said, enthusiastically.
"Right!" another said. "Because one person is the main one telling the story--"
"And then someone else jumps in, and is like, 'Oh yeah, I heard something about that on the news!'"
"-- Yeah! And then the third person jumps in and confirms it: 'Me too! On CNN!'"
"By doing that, you can totally convince people of ANYTHING."

"Wooow..." I said: convinced.

"But we would never do that to you," one of them said.
"No," scoffed another. "Of course not. We like you too much."
"Awwww," I said, pleased.

"You know what was a crazy story that turned out to be TRUE though?" one asked.
"What?" I said, wide-eyed.
"When Linn Shwann, the Japanese synchronized swimmer, completely threw the 1988 Olympics."

Before I knew it, these three boys had told me the entire-- TRUE (not true)-- story of Linn Shwann, the Olympic Japanese synchronized swimmer, who had upset her favored Japanese team by swimming to the bottom of the pool, sitting on the tiles, and vehemently blowing bubbles.
"And of course, the two things that MAJORLY dock you in synchronized swimming--"
"Are touching the bottom, and blowing bubbles!" one of the boys finished, emphatically.
"Why did she DO it??" I asked incredulously. "Didn't she want to win??"
"Well, they think that Switzerland paid her off," one of the boys supplied, matter of factly.
"Switzerland had held the title for the last three Olympics. There was no way they were going to lose it to Japan. And Linn Shwann just happened to be the most susceptible target."

"Woooow...." I shook my head, dumb-founded. Convinced. FOOLED.

They all burst out laughing. I had completely fallen for it. I hadn't even questioned WHY THEY WOULD BE TELLING ME A STORY ABOUT LINN SHWANN, THE OLYMPIC JAPANESE SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMER. Ridiculous.


Years later, I was out with friends, celebrating my 22nd birthday. Two boys were there that I was only just getting to know. I heard one of them mention that he had grown up in Oklahoma.
"Cool!!" I said. "I always picture Oklahoma being full of cows and farms. 'Ooooook-lahoma!'"
"Seth grew up on a farm," the other friend said.
"You DID??" I asked, excited.
"Yup!" he nodded.
"Did you, like, collect the eggs from the chickens, and milk cows and stuff?"
"Oh yeah. Every morning. Mom cooked the eggs for breakfast, and then sent us out to muck the stables."
"That's so cool!!" I said. "I've always wanted to collect eggs and know how to milk cows!"
"Oh yeah," he continued. "Our house was actually a converted barn. The hay loft was the master bedroom-- it actually was really cool, there was a big balcony where they used to pitch hay out of the double doors."
"Seth grew up on the rodeo circuit too," Ben continued.
"You DID?" I asked.

And they continued. And elaborated. And expounded.

Until finally, Ben said, "Greta, Seth never lived on a farm."
I stopped. Looked at him for several seconds, confusion etched across my forehead. "What?"
"His dad is a doctor. And they live in, like, this super advanced architecturally technological home."
I was crushed. "Really...??" I looked at Seth, devastated. "So you really DIDN'T collect the eggs every morning...?"


Yesterday, I signed into Gmail, and noticed an advertisement for their newest Google Feature: "GMail Autopilot: the emailing tool that assesses your personalized writing style, and can then send automated replies to your emails!"

This concept horrified me, and I immediately announced as much via Facebook Status update:

"GRETA is completely horrified by the concept of Google Autopilot. Some computer writing FOR me?? What incentive am I going to give my students to learn to write?? BAAAAAA."

Seth-- that same Seth-- was the first to respond:
"haha you liked that too? i think it's a good attempt at their april fools day joke :) kinda like when i told you i grew up on a farm!"

. . .

I stared at my computer screen for a good fifteen seconds. Considered. Shook my head and furrowed my brows. Then, finally: typed a response:

"What? That was an April Fool's Joke?

... I am the most gullible person alive."