Best April Fool's Day Pranks - Can You Top This One?

I was a Biology major working my way through college, a senior at the time and sharing a rented house off campus with my old roommate and his wife. They had to leave for the spring semester however to student teach in his hometown so I put an ad in the paper to find a couple boarders to take their place because even working two jobs, one at night, was not enough to cover the lost rent.

I was fortunate, I found two great tenants, an x marine, Fred, and a drama graduate of Northwestern University, Roger, who was being mentored in acting by a famous retired drama teacher in my small college town. I was fortunate because both guys had no problem with the animals I had in my bedroom which included 4 pet bats and a screech owl that lived in a hollow log I would tether him to and it was perched high in my bedroom. The bats I had taken from a cave while they were hibernating and the owl was given to me by one of my professors who had a student that found it apparently fallen from a nest. I attach the owl's tether to the shoulder of my special CPO jacket (remember them, CPOs? well maybe if you're over 55) that didn't show the white stripes from when he'd poop down my back. This way the owl could come with me wherever I wanted to take him and he would just sleep on my shoulder during daytime. Roger and Fred were not bothered by the screeching in my bedroom when every night I had to let the bats loose to get exercise and feed them. They would circle the room dozens of times and every time they flew close to the owl perched outside his hole he would let out a screech.

Roger loved his trade - stayed up nights watching old movies starring the usual acting legends, always making me keep the station tuned in until all the credits were run. Amazingly those credits all meant something to him! On more than one occasion I would hear conversations between multiple people in the living room only to find when I came down the stairs from my bedroom it was just Roger performing different parts in front of the living room picture mirror. Roger would routinely don a disguise get into character (usually a grumpy displeased customer) and visit a restaurant where one of his co-aspiring actresses were waitressing only to mess with them while they tried to serve him - he fooled them all the time. He was a stickler for details and aesthetics - once he asked me to pick up some guitar strings so he could replace a broken one on his guitar and he freaked because the ones I got were a different color. Me? - hey if it sounds the same who cares.

It's April 1st, a Sunday. I had been up until 5:00 AM cleaning the restaurant where I was head of the cleanup crew... but the crew didn't show that night! I was exhausted and had a test coming up on Monday I had to study for so when I hit the sack, I was dead to the world (I was always a deep sleeper anyway and hard to get up).

So the stage is set. What I am going to tell you next I have no memory of as I was asleep through this part of the ordeal but according to Roger this is what happened.

Roger said at about 12:00 noon he ran from the kitchen through the living room and up the stairs as loudly as he could screaming at the top of his lungs "the house is on fire" as he ran into my room...he said I didn't move an inch! He shook me and screamed again, "the house is on fire, the gas oven blew up, you have to get out of the house NOW! "

He said I was dead to the world.

So he tramped down the stairs and repeated the whole thing stomping up the stairs ...

He said I didn't wake up.

The third time he did this rant, just before he ran back down the stairs I turned toward him still half asleep and he says I said "Well put it out"....and down the stairs he ran, screaming "the house is on fire you have to get out." This time he ran out the back door (we never used the front door and kept it locked) and into the middle of the street which was more like an alley. He stood there screaming while I lay in bed half asleep while my mind was processing all the commotion - suddenly it sunk in. Roger's ranting was no longer a dream, I could hear it loud and clear even coming from outside the house.

I leaped from my bed, started out the door - all my mind could think was to do whatever Roger was saying..."the house is on fire get out of the house!" Halfway down the steps I remembered, my screech owl, (Spook was his name). I ran back into the room, unhooked Spook's tether and as his talons dug into my shirtless shoulder I started for the door, then I noticed my books - I had to study, so I grabbed my notes and books ... oh no the bats! They were in a shoe box! I put Spook's tether in my mouth though he was still gripping my shoulder and now drawing blood. I was in full panic mode as all I could hear in my head was Roger in the distance calling to me "Tony, Get out! Get out! the house is on fire!" With the bats in one hand and my books in the other I ran down the steps skipping steps as I went, bouncing off the wall, desperately trying to hold onto my books and the shoebox of bats as I bit down on Spook's tether! I leaped from the stairs into the living room, past the picture mirror and looking in it as I ran past, I noticed Spook flying a couple feet behind me at the end of his tether.... and....then .... I saw .....all I had on was my underwear! I stopped dead! Roger's still yelling. I start to run....no I can't run into the street in my underwear!...I turn to head for my bedroom to get dressed...Roger yells again....I decide there is no time to get dressed... THE COUCH! right under the picture mirror is our couch.....the couch cushions YES, YES they'll do...I tuck my books under my one arm and the box of bats under the other, Spook is back on my other shoulder now digging in, I grab one cushion with one hand to cover my front and the other couch cushion with the other for my butt and I head for the back door..... I remember wondering is this all a dream?

I see Roger and Fred standing, still yelling to me, in the middle of the street right outside the back door which they left open but as I burst through the doorway my elbow hits the frame and the bats come flying out of the shoebox. I manage to hold onto the cushions covering my private parts with spook flying right behind me still on his tether and amongst the bats. As I stumble toward my faithful roomates I notice they are now laughing out loud and I turn to see... "What? The house is not on fire?"

And then I realize I'm hearing many more people laughing, not just those two doofuses.

Hanging out the window of the house across the street is a lady laughing, on the front porch of the house next door there is a whole family laughing, and oh no! no! up and down the street neighbors are gawking because they heard all the screaming "the house is on fire" and came out to see what was going on.

My roommate then says "Leopard spotted cushion ware?...really, that's so gaudy!"

I was never so humiliated in my life!