April Fools’ Day is celebrated on the 1st of April every year and it’s a day dedicated to pulling practical jokes and referring to everyone who falls for these jokes as “April Fools”.

Personally, I don’t find amusement in jokes that are purposely pulled to hurt or embarrass people (oh God, I can actually feel the majority of you rolling your eyes at me!) and I think that a lot of people take this day way too seriously and go way overboard with their jokes just to make sure they get a reaction. Click ‘Read more and Comment’ to continue reading.

I guess it started in secondary school, where “hey, will you be my girlfriend?” was a common one. Although it never happened to me, some of my friends were left hurt when the person they were interested in jokingly asked them out and then embarrassed them in front of the rest of the class. Toying with someone’s feelings isn’t funny, which brings me on to the one and only April Fools joke that was played on me. The death of a family member. My cousin thought that convincing me that my grandmother had passed away was hilarious and that sort of stuff just shouldn’t be joked about!

Admittedly, as a kid, the classic “hey look, your shoelaces are untied” prank that my sister always pulled on me always made me chuckle, especially when I wasn’t wearing any shoes. I never thought that as a 22-year-old, I’d still have my, now 30-year-old, sister pulling these dumb jokes every year. However, thankfully my friends know how much I hate this day and refrain from pulling one on me, but I still have to look at all the e-mails I get telling me that my favourite online shop is closing, every news paper with a shocking headline and double check every single one of them just to be clear on whether they’re serious or not. The problem with being as gullible as I am is that I believe most things that I hear anyway. I really don’t need a day dedicated to this. I think I can blame my trust issues solely on this day (OK, maybe I’m taking this a bit too far…)

I was planning on posting this article on April Fools’ Day itself, but instead I will be locked in my room with a book because I’ll already know that that piece of writing is a work of fiction.

What do you think of the holiday? Do you pull pranks or have them pulled on you? Be sure to share them by leaving a comment below.

Hillary Egg believes that Trump becoming president of the United States would be one massive April fool to America