April Fools Day Pranks and Paybacks

As all of you know, last Friday was April Fools Day -- and since I'm a huge prankster, I was rarin' and ready to go!

As I sat on the bus in the morning I planned out a few things with Anne. My first victim was going to be Jeff. Anne told me he had P.E. with Karol that day, and that I should tell him it had been canceled. During my prep period I headed over to his classroom to break the news to him...except when I said "yeah, sorry, but Karol can't take your kids for P.E. today." He gave me a confused look and then said "My kids don't have Karol today". He had religion class and not P.E.! Anne misinformed me and the joke was on me.

That was a hard hit, but I still proceeded to victim number two -- Peggy! I ran into her office and told her that five of my kids starting vomiting and it was some weird chain reaction. She freaked out as any principal would and was two steps behind me as I ran back to my classroom. When she came in to see what was going on, all of my kids yelled "April Fools!" I told them what the day was all about and taught them the phrase before I went to get Peg. They thought it was really funny to prank her like that!

I took a break after that one and waited until the end of the day to do my third and final prank. Thank goodness I did, because it was definitely a prank gone very bad....

Mary (the fifth grade teacher) pretended to faint and had her kids go and grab our computer teacher (Deana). She was freaked out at first, but had a good laugh when she realized it was a joke. So the lightbulb went off in my head and I knew I HAD to do that to Rosita (my counterpart).

I quickly ran down to Jackie's classroom, which is right across from Rosita's, and positioned myself on her floor to look like I had fainted. I had my stuff strewn across the room and my glass sitting crookedly on my head. Wendy was leaning over me calling my name and hitting my cheeks to try to get me to "come to" as Claudia ran to get Rosita. It wasn't long before I heard Rosita's hurried footsteps enter the room. She ran over to me and started screaming "NO! NO! NO! Bridgie?!?! NO! NO! NO!" When I heard the panic in her voice I instantly popped up and yelled "April Fools". We all started laughing and I thought Rosita was laughing too...but soon enough I realized she was actually crying. Oh my gosh, I had no idea she would get so upset. She went back into her classroom and just sat at her desk and cried. Apparently she thought I had died, because Claudia told her I was dead instead of saying I had fainted. BIG DIFFERENCE! Even though I didn't tell Claudia to say that I felt awful. Rosita kept telling me that I hurt her heart. I got so upset that I was in tears while I kept apologizing to her. She finally forgave me and then even giggled about it a little bit, but it was definitely not a funny prank.

The mood was lightened when three of my first grade girls pranked me. They came up and told me that they had gotten into a fight and I saw one girl against the wall crying. When I went to console her and ask what had happened, she popped her face out of her hands and yelled "April Fools". She had gone to the bathroom before coming to get me and put water on her face so it would look like tears. I couldn't believe they did that. It was so cute and so smart of them. We all had a good laugh about it.

When I came to school yesterday Rosita was still giving me a hard time about the prank, but laughing about it too, so I knew she was definitely over it. That's why I was shocked today when this happened...

I'm sitting in my classroom tutoring my kids when Wendy walks in and begs me to come over to Rosita's classroom to learn a few dance steps to a reggaeton song. I told her I couldn't because I had my tutoring kids. As Wendy is talking to me Jackie strolls in to see if she can help with anything. Wendy tells her how she wants me to come to Rosita's room for just a few minutes. So Jackie tells me she'll continue my sentence writing activity with my students so I can go over there. I walk into the room and Estefani, Brenda, Rosita, Yohely, and Wendy are all doing these moves that they want me to learn. So I jump in and start dancing and then they asked me to move right next to Rosita (who was in the center) so I could see the moves better. I'm standing next to Rosi for a few minutes and then they start shoving each other as part of the song (which is not unusual here). Yohely shoves me so hard that I slam into Rosita and she goes flying across the room and hits her head on her desk and then a students desk. She looked like she hit them pretty hard and then she fell to the ground. She was screaming and as she was trying to help herself back up I just saw a bunch of blood on her face and hands. My first thought was "OMG, I bet she broke her nose". But the Hondurans in the room were all swarming her and I had my kids to get back to, so I left. Then Peggy comes running into the hallway freaking out and screaming "qué paso (what happened)?" She comes into my classroom and says "Bridget, what happened to Rosita?" I told her that they were dancing around and started shoving each other. Then I said "She's not hurt really bad, I think she just broke her nose or something". Rosita is a big drama queen so I just figured it probably wasn't as bad as she was making it out to be. But Rosita was saying "my teeth, my teeth" and just as I go to look, she turns around, smiles, and starts laughing. Then Peg said "We got you!" HAHAHA! That is the best prank anyone has ever pulled on me. They put so much thought and planning into it. I mean with the dancing, the fake blood, and having Peggy run in at the exact right moment. Bravo!

I love the fun people I work with :)!

“I got tired of playing other people’s songs” –Gregg Allman