Confession time:

In the early years of my stupidity I had a bright idea of a "great April Fools Day trick". I had overheard some talk about putting a thumbtack in the chair of a schoolteacher who had fallen out of favor for one reason or another. I decided to do one better. I went home and manufactured a thumbtack from a nine inch disk of wood and a gutter spike.

My vision of the trick was that the teacher would walk in the door of the classroom, walk toward the desk, see the enormous thumbtack and then join us in a good laugh.

At the appointed hour I placed the thumbtack and we all waited for our teacher to arrive. She walked into the classroom at last. She began telling us something interesting before she got to the desk and so had her eyes on the class as she made her way toward the chair. Then, in a moment, she was standing between the desk and the chair and was about to sit.

I jumped forward and lunged toward the thumbtack. As luck would have it I was able to snatch the thumbtack away as the teacher began her decent into the seat.

The "good laugh" never came as I had planned.

As you may guess, I learned a lot that day.