Happy April Fool's Day!

Hopefully you all are having a better experience with April Fool's Day than one of my students who came to class crying. Apparently, her history professor told her class on Monday that there would be a very important, very difficult test on Wednesday (today) and then posted a note on the door of the classroom today wishing everyone a happy April Fool's Day.

As insensitive as this professor's joke was, it has me questioning more than just his sensitivity to students' feelings. The fact that he started the prank two days before April 1st has me wondering if it still qualifies as an April Fool's Day joke. For some reason I feel like he wasn't playing "fair"...

Is there some unwritten rule for playing an April Fool's Day joke that it must begin and end on April Fool's Day?

On a lighter note, here's an April Fool's post from Jeff Vandermeer* that cracked me up: Bookdeath (via Dr. Wicked)

*I, for one, can't wait for Vandermeer's Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer to come out in print. You can pre-order it from Amazon here (I did!).


Photo credit: Spinster